Amazon Route 53
Route 53
You need to register domain names and route user traffic to your web applications with high availability DNS.
Reach for it when
- Mapping a custom domain name to an Application Load Balancer, CloudFront distribution, or S3 website.
- Configuring failover routing to redirect users to a static backup site if the primary server fails health checks.
- Routing users to the closest geographic AWS region using latency-based or geolocation routing rules.
Do not reach for it when
- Managing internal service discovery within a Kubernetes cluster — use CoreDNS or ECS Service Connect instead.
- Securing network traffic endpoints with SSL/TLS certificates — use AWS Certificate Manager instead.
- Filtering and intercepting HTTP requests at the network edge based on payload content — use AWS WAF instead.
Alternatives, and how to choose
| Service | Pick it instead when |
|---|---|
| ACM | Choose it when you need to provision, renew, and deploy SSL/TLS certificates for AWS endpoints. |
| API Gateway | Choose it when exposing backend APIs and managing endpoint access keys or rate limits. |
How you pay
- The model
- Pay a flat monthly fee per hosted zone, plus fees per million DNS queries resolved.
- The line item that surprises people
- Resolving DNS queries with complex routing policies or active health checks accumulates charges per active check.
What trips people up
- Deleting a hosted zone does not release the domain name registration; you must update registrar nameservers first.
- DNS propagation delays mean record changes can take hours to update globally depending on the TTL settings.
- Alias records must match target resource types; selecting a standard CNAME instead of an Alias can cause routing issues.
Verify the live service
This page is a concept reference. Cost models are qualitative; confirm the current offering, Region and pricing before deploying.