---
title: Concepts
description: Core concepts for Cloudflare Load Balancing.
image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/core-services-preview.png
---

> Documentation Index  
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/llms.txt  
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. 

[Skip to content](#%5Ftop) 

# Concepts

Review the following topics to learn more about the basic concepts and components involved in Cloudflare Load Balancing.

* [ Load Balancing components ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/load-balancing-components/)
* [ Traffic steering ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/traffic-steering/)
* [ How endpoints and pools become unhealthy ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/health-details/)
* [ Proxy status ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/proxy-modes/)
* [ Session affinity ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/session-affinity/)
* [ Adaptive routing ](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/adaptive-routing/)

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/#page","headline":"Concepts · Cloudflare Load Balancing docs","description":"Core concepts for Cloudflare Load Balancing.","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/","inLanguage":"en","image":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/core-services-preview.png","dateModified":"2026-04-16","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Cloudflare","url":"https://www.cloudflare.com/"},"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/#website","name":"Cloudflare Docs","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/"}}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/directory/","name":"Directory"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/load-balancing/","name":"Load Balancing"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"/load-balancing/understand-basics/","name":"Concepts"}}]}
```
