Choosing between alias and non-alias records

Amazon Route 53 alias records provide a Route 53–specific extension to DNS functionality. Alias records let you route traffic to selected AWS resources, such as CloudFront distributions and Amazon S3 buckets. They also let you route traffic from one record in a hosted zone to another record.

Unlike a CNAME record, you can create an alias record at the top node of a DNS namespace, also known as the zone apex. For example, if you register the DNS name example.com, the zone apex is example.com. You can't create a CNAME record for example.com, but you can create an alias record for example.com that routes traffic to www.example.com (as long as the record type for www.example.com is not of type CNAME).

When Route 53 receives a DNS query for an alias record, Route 53 responds with the applicable value for that resource:

• An Amazon API Gateway custom regional API or edge-optimized API – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for your API.

• An Amazon VPC interface endpoint – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for your interface endpoint.

• A CloudFront distribution – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for CloudFront edge servers that can serve your content.

• An Elastic Beanstalk environment – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for the environment.

• An Elastic Load Balancing load balancer – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for the load balancer. This includes Application Load Balancer, Classic Load Balancer and, Network Load Balancer.

• An AWS Global Accelerator accelerator – Route 53 responds with the IP addresses for the accelerator.

• An Amazon S3 bucket that is configured as a static website – Route 53 responds with one IP address for the Amazon S3 bucket.

• Another Route 53 record of the same type in the same hosted zone – Route 53 responds as if the query is for the record that is referenced by the alias record (see Comparison of alias and CNAME records).

• AWS AppSync domain name – Route 53 responds with one or more IP addresses for your interface endpoint.

When you use an alias record to route traffic to an AWS resource, Route 53 automatically recognizes changes in the resource. For example, suppose an alias record for example.com points to an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer at lb1-1234.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com. If the IP address of the load balancer changes, Route 53 automatically starts to respond to DNS queries using the new IP address.

If an alias record points to an AWS resource, you can't set the time to live (TTL); Route 53 uses the default TTL for the resource. If an alias record points to another record in the same hosted zone, Route 53 uses the TTL of the record that the alias record points to. For more information about the current TTL value for Elastic Load Balancing, go to Request routing in the Elastic Load Balancing User Guide and search for "ttl".

For information about creating records by using the Route 53 console, see Creating records by using the Amazon Route 53 console. For information about the values that you specify for alias records, see the applicable topic in Values that you specify when you create or edit Amazon Route 53 records:

• Values specific for simple alias records

• Values specific for weighted alias records

• Values specific for latency alias records

• Values specific for failover alias records

• Values specific for geolocation alias records

• Values specific for geoproximity alias records

• Values that are common for alias records for all routing policies

Comparison of alias and CNAME records

Alias records are similar to CNAME records, but there are some important differences. The following list compares alias records and CNAME records.

Resources that you can redirect queries to

Alias records

An alias record can only redirect queries to selected AWS resources, such as the following:

• Amazon S3 buckets

• CloudFront distributions

• Another record in the same Route 53 hosted zone

For example, you can create an alias record named acme.example.com that redirects queries to an Amazon S3 bucket that is also named acme.example.com. You can also create an acme.example.com alias record that redirects queries to a record named zenith.example.com in the example.com hosted zone.

CNAME records

A CNAME record can redirect DNS queries to any DNS record. For example, you can create a CNAME record that redirects queries from acme.example.com to zenith.example.com or to acme.example.org. You don't need to use Route 53 as the DNS service for the domain that you're redirecting queries to.

Creating records that have the same name as the domain (records at the zone apex)

Alias records

In most configurations, you can create an alias record that has the same name as the hosted zone (the zone apex). The one exception is when you want to redirect queries from the zone apex (such as example.com) to a record in the same hosted zone that has a type of CNAME (such as zenith.example.com). The alias record must have the same type as the record you're routing traffic to, and creating a CNAME record for the zone apex isn't supported even for an alias record.

CNAME records

You can't create a CNAME record that has the same name as the hosted zone (the zone apex). This is true both for hosted zones for domain names (example.com) and for hosted zones for subdomains (zenith.example.com).

Pricing for DNS queries

Alias records

Route 53 doesn't charge for alias queries to AWS resources. For more information, see Amazon Route 53 Pricing.

CNAME records

Route 53 charges for CNAME queries.

Note

If you create a CNAME record that redirects to the name of another record in a Route 53 hosted zone (the same hosted zone or another hosted zone), each DNS query is charged as two queries:

• Route 53 responds to the first DNS query with the name of the record that you want to redirect to.

• Then the DNS resolver must submit another query for the record in the first response to get information about where to direct traffic, for example, the IP address of a web server.

If the CNAME record redirects to the name of a record that is hosted with another DNS service, Route 53 charges for one query. The other DNS service might charge for the second query.

Record type specified in the DNS query

Alias records

Route 53 responds to a DNS query only when the name of the alias record (such as acme.example.com) and the type of the alias record (such as A or AAAA) match the name and type in the DNS query.

CNAME records

A CNAME record redirects DNS queries for a record name regardless of the record type specified in the DNS query, such as A or AAAA.

How records are listed in dig or nslookup queries

Alias records

In the response to a dig or nslookup query, an alias record is listed as the record type that you specified when you created the record, such as A or AAAA. (The record type that you specify for an alias record depends on the resource that you're routing traffic to. For example, to route traffic to an S3 bucket, you specify A for the type.) The alias property is visible only in the Route 53 console or in the response to a programmatic request, such as an AWS CLI list-resource-record-sets command.

CNAME records

A CNAME record is listed as a CNAME record in response to dig or nslookup queries.