When is a Hostwinds load balancer useful, and does it automatically detect failed servers?
The short answer
It is useful when an application is prepared to run across multiple backend servers. Hostwinds documents health monitoring as disabled by default, so create appropriate checks before relying on it to avoid unhealthy backends. The load balancer is a separately configured service.
In more detail
Hostwinds lets you configure backend server addresses, traffic rules and a distribution method for its load balancer. The health monitor is optional and initially disabled. Creating a frontend address alone is therefore not enough to establish the failure behavior you expect.
Our selection advice is to first decide whether a single larger server or multiple application servers better fits the workload. A load balancer can distribute requests, but adding it does not make a slow database faster or copy uploaded files and login sessions between servers. Plan those shared dependencies separately.
For a transactional application, design a lightweight health endpoint that reflects useful readiness without changing customer data. Test a stopped backend and an application failure, not just a successful homepage request. Confirm HTTPS handling and session behavior as part of that exercise.
Treat this as a cloud companion service with its own setup and cost, rather than a feature assumed to be included in a VPS quote. For a small site with one backend, the extra component may offer little immediate value. It becomes more compelling when there is a clear scaling or maintenance requirement and the application is ready for it.