A hardware load balancer is a physical device that distributes network traffic across multiple servers. This helps ensure that no single server becomes overwhelmed, improving the performance and reliability of applications. By managing incoming requests, it can enhance response times and provide redundancy in case of server failures. These devices often come with advanced features like SSL offloading and traffic monitoring. They are typically used in data centers and enterprise environments where high availability and scalability are crucial. Hardware load balancers can be more expensive than software solutions but offer dedicated performance and security benefits.