Alibaba Cloud VPS Review

Alibaba

Last updated on September 28th 2021

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

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.

Average Provisioning Time	Min Provisioning Time	Max Provisioning Time	Number of VPS Samples
34s	20s	45s	5

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	1.0
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 4 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
Jun 17 2018	Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz	US East 1	D
Nov 12 2017	Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50GHz	US East 1 (Virginia)	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	1.0
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

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	E
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	2.0
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

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	2.0
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

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	4.0
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	4.0
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	4.0
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	4.0
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	8.0
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

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Alibaba Cloud VPS Review

Best VPS Awards

Quick Links

Alibaba Cloud VPS Features

Pros and Cons

Strengths

Weaknesses

Alibaba Cloud Extra Services

VPS Instance Provisioning Time

Admin UI Screenshots

Cloud Storage Prices

Alibaba Cloud Plans

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the Starter 1GB 1 core plan

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

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

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the ecs.n4.small plan

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

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

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

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

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the ecs.n4.large plan

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the ecs.c5.large plan

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the ecs.c6e.large plan

Plan Specifications

Plan Grades

Performance Test Results

Performance trials run on the ecs.g6.large plan

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