Currently, the official Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) website is offering a "Lightweight Application Server" (SAS) in the Mainland China region with 2 vCPUs and 2GB RAM for a first-year promo price of 68 RMB. Normally, this costs a little over 400 RMB per year. So, in this article, I'm going to review this Shanghai-based lightweight server and share my personal user experience. Let's start with the benchmark results:
---------------------Basic Info -- Thanks to all open source projects----------------------
CPU Model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum
CPU Cores : 2
CPU Frequency : 2500.000 MHz
CPU Cache : L1: 32.00 KB / L2: 1.00 MB / L3: 33.00 MB
AES-NI : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled
Memory : 580.66 MiB / 1.63 GiB
Swap : 0 KiB / 1.00 GiB
Disk Space : 13.38 GiB / 39.01 GiB
Boot Path : /dev/vda3
Uptime : 279 days, 10 hour 46 min
Load Average : 0.56, 0.60, 0.36
OS : Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (x86_64)
Arch : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel : 5.15.0-107-generic
TCP Algo : bbr
Virtualization : KVM
NAT Type : Port Restricted Cone
IPV4 ASN : AS37963 Hangzhou Alibaba Advertising Co.,Ltd.
IPV4 Location : Shanghai / Shanghai / CN
------------------------CPU Test -- via sysbench-------------------------
-> CPU Testing (Fast Mode, 1-Pass @ 5sec)
1 Thread (Single Core) Score: 1037 Scores
2 Threads (Multi Core) Score: 1517 Scores
--------------------Memory Test -- Thanks to lemonbench----------------------------
-> Memory Test (Fast Mode, 1-Pass @ 5sec)
Read (Single Thread): 2837.67 MB/s
Write (Single Thread): 2800.29 MB/s
--------------------Disk dd Test -- Thanks to lemonbench--------------------
-> Disk IO Test (4K Block/1M Block, Direct Mode)
Test Operation Write Speed Read Speed
100MB-4K Block 6.6 MB/s (1623 IOPS, 15.77s) 5.8 MB/s (1406 IOPS, 18.21s)
1GB-1M Block 123 MB/s (117 IOPS, 8.51s) 118 MB/s (112 IOPS, 8.91s)
-------------IP Quality Check -- via oneclickvirt/securityCheck--------------
Data is for reference only.
[Reference DB IDs omitted for brevity, logic follows standard security checks]
IPV4:
Security Score:
Trust Score (Higher is better): 0 [8]
VPN Score (Lower is better): 100 [8]
Proxy Score (Lower is better): 100 [8]
Community Vote - Harmless: 0 [2]
Community Vote - Malicious: 0 [2]
Threat Score (Lower is better): 100 [8]
Fraud Score (Lower is better): 65 [E]
Abuse Score (Lower is better): 0 [3]
...
Traffic Type: Human (Higher is better) 15% [I] Bot (Lower is better) 84% [I]
Blacklist Records:
Harmless: 0 [2] Malicious: 0 [2] Suspicious: 0 [2] Clean: 95 [2]
Security Info:
Usage Type: business [0 7 8 A] Commercial [3] hosting [9 C]
Company Type: hosting [7 A] business [0]
Browser Type: Mainstream 89% Other 10% [I]
Device Type: Desktop 95% Mobile 4% Other 0% [I]
OS Type: Mainstream 86% Other 13% [I]
Is Cloud Provider: Yes [7 D]
Is Data Center: No [0 8] Yes [5 6 A C G]
Is Proxy: No [0 4 5 6 7 8 9 A C D] Yes [E G]
Is VPN: No [0 6 7 A C D] Yes [E G]
DNS-Blacklist: 314(Total_Check) 0(Clean) 6(Blacklisted) 16(Other)
Google Search Feasibility: NO
------------Mail Port Check -- via oneclickvirt/portchecker------------
Platform SMTP SMTPS POP3 POP3S IMAP IMAPS
LocalPort ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
QQ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
163 ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
Sohu ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
Yandex ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
Gmail ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘
Outlook ✘ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
...
----------------------China Latency Check -- Original Script-----------------------
Unicom Shanghai 4 | Unicom Taiyuan 29 | Unicom Fuzhou 34 |
Telecom Wuhan 23 | Telecom Suzhou 9 | Telecom Yangzhou 11 |
Telecom Nanjing 10 | Telecom Zhenjiang 9 | Mobile Hangzhou 8 |
Mobile Chengdu 41 |The hardware is mediocre, leaning towards the lower end, and the CPU frequency isn't particularly high. However, the latency across China is excellent (very low). Note that this script doesn't include a bandwidth speed test. A big question many people have is whether this Alibaba Cloud server can actually max out its advertised 200Mbps.
I've been running this server for over half a year, mainly using it as a NetEase Cloud Music downloader and for interacting with overseas APIs. Generally, during evening peak hours (in Mainland China), the bandwidth doesn't even hit 30Mbps, let alone 200Mbps. Occasionally, when traffic is low, it can burst up to 50-100Mbps. This upload speed is considered fast for a domestic server, but if you consistently push it that high, you'll likely get throttled very quickly.
I can only say that for the first year, it's a steal. But at 400 RMB/year for renewal? You'd be better off looking at lightweight servers in Hong Kong. Mainland servers just come with too much red tape and too many restrictions.
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