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Container Service for Kubernetes:Performance of managed CoreDNS

Last Updated:Mar 26, 2026

Managed CoreDNS runs on ACK managed clusters and ACK Serverless clusters in intelligent hosting mode. This topic describes its query-per-second (QPS) performance under default configuration.

Important

Performance figures depend on the number of Services and pods in the cluster, cache size, and TTL (Time to Live) configuration. The data below is for reference only and applies only when the total number of Services and pods does not exceed 50,000. By default, managed CoreDNS runs two replicas and scales automatically based on load.

QPS performance

The following table summarizes the default QPS capacity by domain name type.

Domain name typeDefault replicasQPS
In-cluster210,000
Internal VPC (PrivateZone)28,000
Internet2Depends on the public DNS service used

In-cluster domain names

Each replica resolves up to 5,000 QPS of in-cluster domain names. With the default two replicas, the total throughput is 10,000 QPS.

Out-of-cluster domain names

Out-of-cluster DNS resolution is bounded by the upstream DNS service, not by CoreDNS itself.

Internal VPC domain names (PrivateZone)

The default upstream DNS service is PrivateZone, reachable at 100.100.2.136 and 100.100.2.138. With the default two replicas, managed CoreDNS supports 8,000 QPS for internal VPC domain names.

PrivateZone enforces the following per-IP limits, which cap the effective throughput of CoreDNS:

LimitThreshold
DNS resolution requests per IP in a VPC5,000 QPS
External recursive resolution requests per IP in a VPC600 QPS
Recursive DNS requests to the Internet from all ECS instances in a VPC5,000 QPS

To reduce requests that reach PrivateZone, add frequently accessed domain names to the CoreDNS cache. Cached responses are returned locally, bypassing PrivateZone and improving resolution speed.

Internet domain names

Performance for Internet domain names depends on the public DNS service in use and is also subject to the PrivateZone limits listed above.

Add frequently accessed or critical Internet domain names to the cache. This improves resolution speed and ensures that cached results are returned if the authoritative DNS service becomes unavailable.

What's next

Use NodeLocal DNSCache to further reduce DNS latency and improve performance. For more information, see Use the NodeLocal DNSCache component.

References