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Alibaba Cloud VPS Review

Alibaba

Last updated on

Alibaba Cloud was founded in 2009.
It is headquartered in China.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.

It has datacenters in:
  • Australia
  • China
  • Germany
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Japan
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom

Best VPS Awards

3rd Best Value February 2019

Quick Links

Alibaba Cloud plans specs and prices Plans
Review Alibaba Cloud plan grades in the Screener Screener
Review CPU models found in Alibaba Cloud trials CPUs
Performance variations of Alibaba Cloud VPS over the long term Consistency

Alibaba Cloud VPS Features

Features not included in the VPS price are marked as missing below.

Feature Value Comment
Hourly Billing  Mixed
DDOS Protection  Yes

https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/anti-ddos.
Also https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/faq-detail/40032.htm.
Backups  Yes

Snapshots are free.
Control Panel  Custom
SSH Keys Setup  Yes
Total Number of Datacenters  21
Number of Datacenter Continents  4
Monitoring Charts  Yes

CPU, Network, CPU credits for burstable instances.
Admin REST API  Yes

URL: https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/doc-detail/25484.htm
Upgrade VPS from admin console  Yes
Mobile Friendly UI  No
Reverse DNS  No
Accepted Forms of Payment  Credit cards, Paypal, Alipay
Hidden CPU Model  No
Affiliate Program  Yes
Firewall  Yes

Called Security Groups. They allow to choose which ports are open or closed.
Shelving  No
Compare Features

Pros and Cons

Strengths

  • Numerous datacenter locations.
  • Large catalog of cloud services.

Weaknesses

  • Varying pricing depending on location.
  • Complex, hard to use UI.

Alibaba Cloud Extra Services

In addition to features included in VPS plans, Alibaba Cloud also offers the following services (possibly for a fee):

Backups   Block storage   Object storage   Load balancer   Floating IP addresses  
Team Management   Managed databases   Serverless   DDoS protection   Kubernetes  
GPU instances   Private network

VPS Instance Provisioning Time

For each Alibaba Cloud VPS trial, we measured how long it took to provision the server from the moment it was ordered to the moment it accepted SSH connections.

See also VPS provisioning times for all providers.

Average Provisioning Time Min Provisioning Time Max Provisioning Time Number of VPS Samples
38s 30s 45s 4

Admin UI Screenshots


Cloud Storage Prices

For a comparison of storage features and prices from all providers, please check the Cloud Storage Prices page.

Storage Type Price / GB / month Restriction Description
Snapshots $0.018 First 5GB are free US-East price. Charges only for incremental size of the snapshot. Snapshots are stored in object storage (OSS).
https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/doc-detail/56159.htm
Object $0.016 First 5GB free. Standard Storage. Infrequent and Archive storage option are also available for lower prices.
https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/oss/pricing
Block $0.030 Standard SSD Pay as You Go Network Access Storage in US East "Ultra Disk" is $0.01/GB for Pay as you go in the US east region.
https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/nas/pricing

Alibaba Cloud Plans

Screen all Alibaba Cloud VPS Plans


Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/starter-packages/general
Price per month $4.50
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 No
Disk GB 25
Num Cores 1
Memory GB 1
Hourly Billing No
Virtualization Unknown
Data Transfer GB 2000
Burstable CPU Per core CPU allocation: 100%
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 21

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
E E E D F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Note: A low grade on a low price VPS does not necessarily mean the VPS is underperforming, the server may still perform better than other servers at the same price. Use the Price Weighted Grades or the Best VPS 2022 rankings to find the best VPS in each price range.


Performance Test Results

We conducted 6 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - Starter 1GB 1 core. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Live Web Network Transfers Remote Timings Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the Starter 1GB 1 core plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the Starter 1GB 1 core plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Mar 15 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA E
Feb 10 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz Frankfurt, Germany D

Public traffic fee: $ 0.076 USD per GB

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs#pricing
Price per month $6.52
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 No
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 1
Memory GB 1
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB Unlimited
Burstable CPU Per core CPU allocation: 20%
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 27

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
D F E E D
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Note: A low grade on a low price VPS does not necessarily mean the VPS is underperforming, the server may still perform better than other servers at the same price. Use the Price Weighted Grades or the Best VPS 2022 rankings to find the best VPS in each price range.


Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.t5-lc1m1.small. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.t5-lc1m1.small plan

This plan was tested 3 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.t5-lc1m1.small plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Sep 28 2021 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA E
Nov 15 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA D
Nov 16 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz USA East 1 Zone A E

Using 20GB Ultra-disk storage at $0.07/GB/month (included).

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs
Price per month $13.66
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $18.00/month, which is 31% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 20
Num Cores 1
Memory GB 2
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 26

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
E E C E F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Note: A low grade on a low price VPS does not necessarily mean the VPS is underperforming, the server may still perform better than other servers at the same price. Use the Price Weighted Grades or the Best VPS 2022 rankings to find the best VPS in each price range.


Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.n4.small. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.n4.small plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.n4.small plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Sep 01 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz Frankfurt, Germany E
Jun 30 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA E

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs#pricing
Price per month $14.13
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $23.04/month, which is 63% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 20
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 2
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB Unlimited
Burstable CPU Per core CPU allocation: 15%
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 43

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
B C E D E
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Note: A low grade on a low price VPS does not necessarily mean the VPS is underperforming, the server may still perform better than other servers at the same price. Use the Price Weighted Grades or the Best VPS 2022 rankings to find the best VPS in each price range.


Performance Test Results

We conducted 5 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs-t5-c1m1-large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Live Web Network Transfers Remote Timings Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs-t5-c1m1-large plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs-t5-c1m1-large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Sep 07 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz US East 1 D
Sep 09 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz EU Central 1 (Germany) C

Enhanced SSD (ESSD) PL0 40GiB (2280 IOPS)

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs
Price per month $20.91
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 No
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 4
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Maximum Network Speed 80 Mbps
Burstable CPU Per core CPU allocation: 20%
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 39

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
B D C E F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.t6-c1m2.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.t6-c1m2.large plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.t6-c1m2.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Jul 07 2021 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA D

n4 is the Shared Performance Compute Type. This plan price is calculated with a 40GB "Standard SSD" disk.

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs#pricing
Price per month $35.41
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $42.48/month, which is 19% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 4
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 41

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
D C B E F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.n4.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.n4.large plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.n4.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Feb 21 2021 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA D
Jun 17 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz Frankfurt, Germany C

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs#pricing
Price per month $37.52
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $57.60/month, which is 53% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 4
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 1000
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 47

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
C C B E F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 6 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.c5.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Live Web Network Transfers Remote Timings Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.c5.large plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.c5.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
May 07 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA D
Apr 08 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8163 CPU @ 2.50GHz Frankfurt, Germany C

PL0 SSD storage (2280 IOPS). Bandwidth cap set at 100Mbps. Internet traffic: $0.076/GB.

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs
Price per month $41.32
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $64.80/month, which is 56% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 4
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Maximum Network Speed 100 Mbps
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 46

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
B C C E F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.c6e.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.c6e.large plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.c6e.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Nov 09 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA D

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs
Price per month $43.19
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $67.00/month, which is 55% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 0
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 8
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 52

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
B B B D F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 6 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.g6.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Live Web Network Transfers Remote Timings Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.g6.large plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.g6.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Jan 15 2020 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8269CY CPU @ 2.50GHz Virginia, USA C

Plan Specifications

URL https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs
Price per month $53.80
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 No
Disk GB 40
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 4
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated CPU No
Storage Root storage for this plan is networked.

Plan Grades

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 35

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
B D D F F
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 4 different types of tests during the latest trial for Alibaba Cloud - ecs.c7.large. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Runs Network Transfers Sysbench Endurance
Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the ecs.c7.large plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the ecs.c7.large plan with its grade and CPU type.

Start of Trial CPU Datacenter Overall Grade
Feb 21 2022 Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8369B CPU @ 2.70GHz Singapore D

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