Which service offers automatic scaling and load balancing for web applications in Azure?

Azure App Service is the service that offers automatic scaling and load balancing for web applications in Azure. It provides a fully managed platform for building, deploying, and scaling web apps, mobile app backends, and RESTful APIs. The key feature of Azure App Service is its built-in load balancing and autoscaling capabilities, which allow web applications to handle varying levels of traffic without requiring manual intervention. This means that as demand increases, Azure App Service can automatically allocate more resources and distribute incoming traffic effectively across instances to ensure optimal performance and availability.

While Azure Functions, Azure Service Fabric, and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) do have their own scaling and load balancing features, they operate at different levels and use cases. Azure Functions is designed primarily for serverless compute scenarios, where scaling is managed differently, and it focuses on executing event-driven functions rather than traditional web applications. Azure Service Fabric provides a microservices platform that can scale services but typically requires more management and infrastructure overhead than Azure App Service. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers powerful orchestration for containerized applications, including scaling, but it also requires more expertise and management effort compared to the streamlined services offered by Azure App Service for web applications.

Thus, Azure App Service stands out as the