---
title: Pools · Cloudflare Load Balancing docs
description: Within Cloudflare, pools represent your endpoints and how they are
  organized. As such, a pool can be a group of several endpoints, or you could
  also have only one endpoint (an origin server, for example) per pool.
lastUpdated: 2025-08-20T20:59:04.000Z
chatbotDeprioritize: false
source_url:
  html: https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/pools/
  md: https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/pools/index.md
---

Within Cloudflare, pools represent your endpoints and how they are organized. As such, a pool can be a group of several endpoints, or you could also have only one endpoint (an origin server, for example) per pool.

If you are familiar with DNS terminology, think of a pool as a “record set,” except Cloudflare only returns addresses that are considered healthy. You can attach health monitors to individual pools for customized monitoring. A pool can have either a single monitor or a monitor group attached — but not both.

For more details about how endpoints and pools become unhealthy, refer to [Endpoint and pool health](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/health-details/).

Warning

Since load balancing targets are not limited to origin web servers, the term `endpoints` has been introduced. Refer to [Service-Specific Terms](https://www.cloudflare.com/service-specific-terms-other-terms/) for its use in the context of Cloudflare offerings, and to [load balancing concepts](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/load-balancing-components/) or [Reference Architecture](https://developers.cloudflare.com/reference-architecture/architectures/load-balancing/) for use case examples.

On the [Load Balancing API](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/methods/get/), `origin` has been maintained.

***

## Properties

For an up-to-date list of pool properties, refer to [Pool properties](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/list/) in our API documentation.

***

## Create pools

For step-by-step guidance, refer to [Create pools](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/pools/create-pool/).

***

## Per-endpoint Host header override

When your application needs specialized routing (`CNAME` setup or custom hosts like Heroku), change the `Host` header used in health monitor requests. For more details, refer to [Override HTTP Host headers](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/additional-options/override-http-host-headers/).

***

## API commands

The Cloudflare API supports the following commands for pools. Examples are given for user-level endpoint but apply to the account-level endpoint as well.

| Command | Method | Endpoint |
| - | - | - |
| [Create Pool](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/create/) | `POST` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools` |
| [Delete Pool](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/delete/) | `DELETE` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id` |
| [List Pools](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/list/) | `GET` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools` |
| [Pool Details](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/get/) | `GET` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id` |
| [Pool Health Details](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/subresources/health/methods/get/) | `GET` | `account/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id/health` |
| [Overwrite specific properties](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/edit/) | `PATCH` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id` |
| [Overwrite existing pool](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/methods/update/) | `PUT` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id` |
| [Preview Pool](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/subresources/health/methods/create/) | `POST` | `account/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id/preview` |
| [List Pool References](https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/load_balancers/subresources/pools/subresources/references/methods/get/) | `GET` | `accounts/:account_id/load_balancers/pools/:id/references` |
