Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon EC2
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We have tested 17 VPS plans from Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2. This page is a summary and a comparison of all test results for those 2 providers.
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud was founded in 2009.
It is headquartered in China.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.
- Australia
- China
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Singapore
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2 was founded in 2006.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.
- Australia
- Bahrain
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Singapore
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
- United States
VPS Plans
| Plan Name | Monthly Price | CPU cores | Memory (GB) | Disk Space (GB) | Data Transfer (GB) | Latest trial | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Starter 1GB 1 core | $4.50 | 1 | 1.0 | 25 | 2000 | Mar 15 2020 |
|
|
ecs.t5-lc1m1.small | $11.96 | 1 | 1.0 | 40 | 10000 | Nov 15 2019 |
|
|
ecs.n4.small | $13.66 | 1 | 2.0 | 20 | 0 | Sep 01 2020 |
|
|
t3.small | $14.98 | 2 | 2.0 | 8 | 1000 | Apr 17 2020 |
|
|
t3a.medium | $27.07 | 2 | 4.0 | 0 | 0 | Nov 04 2019 |
|
|
t4g.medium | $28.20 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Sep 15 2020 |
|
|
c6gd.medium | $28.44 | 1 | 2.0 | 67 | 0 | Feb 28 2021 |
|
|
t3-medium | $29.95 | 2 | 4.0 | 8 | 200 | Jan 04 2020 |
|
|
ecs.n4.large | $35.41 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Feb 21 2021 |
|
|
ecs.c5.large | $37.52 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 1000 | May 07 2020 |
|
|
ecs.c6e.large | $41.32 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Nov 09 2020 |
|
|
ecs.g6.large | $43.19 | 2 | 8.0 | 0 | 0 | Jan 15 2020 |
|
|
c6g.large | $52.96 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Nov 22 2020 |
|
|
c5a.large | $59.44 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Jun 05 2020 |
|
|
c5.large | $65.20 | 2 | 4.0 | 40 | 0 | Jul 26 2020 |
|
|
m5a.large | $65.90 | 2 | 8.0 | 40 | 100 | May 21 2020 |
|
|
m5.large | $73.12 | 2 | 8.0 | 40 | 200 | Feb 21 2020 |
Performance Grades
To summarize the performance of each VPS plan, we generated grades based on the various tests that were run: web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Each grade focuses on one aspect of the VPS speed or stability (cpu, disk IO, network IO...) and is made of one or more metrics measured during the tests.
Grades are evenly distributed between A and F. A is best, F is worst.
Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.
Screen all VPS from Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2| Plan Name | Web Perf | Raw CPU Power | Perf Stability | Disk IO Perf | Network Perf | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Starter 1GB 1 core
$4.50 |
E | E | E | D | F |
|
|
ecs.t5-lc1m1.small
$11.96 |
D | E | D | D | F |
|
|
ecs.n4.small
$13.66 |
E | E | C | E | F |
|
|
t3.small
$14.98 |
D | C | E | D | B |
|
|
t3a.medium
$27.07 |
F | E | F | D | C |
|
|
t4g.medium
$28.20 |
B | D | C | E | B |
|
|
c6gd.medium
$28.44 |
B | E | A | D | C |
|
|
t3-medium
$29.95 |
C | C | C | D | B |
|
|
ecs.n4.large
$35.41 |
D | C | B | E | F |
|
|
ecs.c5.large
$37.52 |
C | C | B | E | F |
|
|
ecs.c6e.large
$41.32 |
B | C | C | E | F |
|
|
ecs.g6.large
$43.19 |
B | B | B | D | F |
|
|
c6g.large
$52.96 |
C | C | A | E | B |
|
|
c5a.large
$59.44 |
D | B | C | D | A |
|
|
c5.large
$65.20 |
B | B | C | E | D |
|
|
m5a.large
$65.90 |
C | D | C | D | A |
|
|
m5.large
$73.12 |
B | C | A | D | A |
CPUs
These are the CPUs we have seen in Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2 instances in the past 18 months.
| All Alibaba Cloud CPUs | All Amazon EC2 CPUs |
|
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz |
AMD EPYC 7571 AMD EPYC 7R32 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8124M CPU @ 3.00GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8175M CPU @ 2.50GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8259CL CPU @ 2.50GHz Neoverse-N1 |
VPS Instance Provisioning Time
This is the average time it took to create an instance for Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2 from instance order to instance accepting connections.
| Alibaba Cloud | Amazon EC2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of instance creations in sample | 8 | 10 |
| Average provisioning time | 40s | 23s |
In Depth...
These are some of the test results that make up the grades above.
Web Response Times
We ran a database intensive web application at various levels of load on cloud servers from Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2. This is the average response time measured locally on the VPS for each plan we tested.
Local Response Time per Plan
Lower is better
Maximum HTTP Load
We ran a database intensive web application at various levels of load on cloud servers from Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2. This is the maximum rate of HTTP requests that each server handled without error.
Maximum HTTP request rate
Higher is better
Sysbench CPU Performance
We ran the full suite of Sysbench tests on VPS plans of Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2. These are the Sysbench CPU test results:
Rate of operations
Higher is better
Sysbench Disk IO Performance
We ran the full suite of Sysbench tests on VPS plans of Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2. These are the Sysbench Disk IO Random Read test results:
Rate of operations
Higher is better
Review and compare all Sysbench numbers on the Sysbench Comparison page for Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2.
Network Transfers
We have performed large file transfers from the Alibaba Cloud and Amazon EC2 VPS and we measured the speed of downloads and uploads.
The transfers involve multiple files, 10 threads and last for at least 10 seconds at maximum speed. The transfers are repeated 3 times from different servers and only the fastest transfer is reported here.
Download Speed per Plan
Higher is better
Sustained CPU Endurance Tests
We pushed the CPU of those VPS plans hard for 24 hours straight.
This test shows how fast the VPS can go for long periods of time, how stable the performance is and it also gives clues on how overallocated the VPSs may be.
Average number of operations per hour
Higher is better
Features and Usability
Features not included in the VPS price of the plan will be marked as missing but they may be available for the fee.
| Amazon EC2 Review | Alibaba Cloud Review | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly Billing | Yes | Mixed |
| DDOS Protection | No | Yes |
| Backups | No | Yes |
| Control Panel | Builtin | Custom |
| SSH Keys Setup | Yes | Yes |
| Total Number of Datacenters | 22 | 21 |
| Number of Datacenter Continents | 4 | 4 |
Screenshots
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