Alibaba Cloud DNS offers one free edition and three paid editions. This topic compares the free edition with the paid editions.
Edition comparison
The following table describes the differences between the free edition and paid editions of Alibaba Cloud DNS.
We recommend that you purchase the Domain Name System (DNS) protection feature to increase the maximum number of DNS queries per second. This avoids DNS resolution failures as much as possible.
For scenarios where DNS records need to be frequently changed in batches, we recommend that you use the DNS data backup feature to ensure quick restoration of DNS records in case of errors.
The number of domain names bound to an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance is the number of primary domain names that are bound to the Alibaba Cloud DNS instance. Subdomain names that are independently hosted by Alibaba Cloud DNS can also be counted into such primary domain names.
DNS protection
The free edition of Alibaba Cloud DNS does not support the DNS protection feature. The following table describes the two protection levels that are supported in the paid editions.
Feature | Free Edition | Personal Edition | Enterprise Standard Edition | Enterprise Ultimate Edition |
Applicable website | Personal homepage and space | Websites of individual users and small and micro-sized enterprises. These websites have no special requirements for DNS performance, such as the DNS resolution speed, effective time, and stability. | Websites or services of large and medium-sized enterprises. These websites have higher requirements for DNS performance, such as the DNS resolution speed, effective time, service level agreement (SLA), and intelligent DNS resolution. | Websites of Internet technology enterprises, financial institutions, and multinational enterprises. These websites have the highest requirements for DNS performance, such as the DNS resolution speed, effective time, and customization. |
SLA-guaranteed availability | N/A | Monthly availability at 100% | Monthly availability at 100% | Monthly availability at 100% |
Maximum number of DNS nodes | 4 in the Chinese mainland | 7 in the Chinese mainland 12 outside the Chinese mainland | 7 in the Chinese mainland 12 outside the Chinese mainland | 7 in the Chinese mainland 12 outside the Chinese mainland |
Number of subdomain hosting levels | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
Maximum number of subdomains | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000. If you want to add more subdomains, submit a ticket to increase the upper limit. |
Maximum number of subdomain levels | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
Minimum TTL period (seconds) | 600 | 600 | 60 | 1 |
Intelligent DNS resolution | Lines of China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Education and Research Network (CERNET), and Internet service providers (ISPs) outside the Chinese mainland | Lines of China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng Group, CERNET, China Broadnet (CBN), and ISPs outside the Chinese mainland | Alibaba Cloud lines, provincial lines of China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng Group, CERNET, and CBN, and lines of ISPs outside the Chinese mainland (continents, countries, or regions) | All fixed intelligent resolution lines (Resolution of custom IP address ranges is supported.) |
Line type switching (ISP lines and regional lines) | Not supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported |
Maximum number of URL forwarding records | 2 | 5 | 10 | 10 |
Weight configuration (A, CNAME, and AAAA records) | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Maximum number of IP addresses that are used for load balancing in a single line of a domain name | 10 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Statistics on the number of requests (accurate to subdomains) | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
IPv6 DNS | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Secondary DNS | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
DNS record backup | Not supported | Not supported | Supported (backup by day, restoration with only a few clicks) | Supported (backup by hour, restoration with only a few clicks) |
DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Maximum number of domain names that can be bound to an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance | 1 | 100 (If you want to bind more domain names, we recommend that you bind the domain names to multiple Alibaba Cloud DNS instances.) | 100 (If you want to bind more domain names, we recommend that you bind the domain names to multiple Alibaba Cloud DNS instances.) | 100 (If you want to bind more domain names, we recommend that you bind the domain names to multiple Alibaba Cloud DNS instances.) |
Maximum number of DNS queries per second | No more than 20,000 | No more than 200,000 | No more than 200,000 | No more than 200,000 |
Protection level | Basic DNS attack defense | Advanced DNS attack defense |
Service scope | Alibaba Cloud DNS provides basic protection against DNS attacks for domain names bound to Alibaba Cloud DNS instances. A maximum of 10 million requests can be handled per second for each domain name. | Alibaba Cloud DNS provides advanced protection against DNS attacks for domain names bound to Alibaba Cloud DNS instances. More than 100 million requests can be handled per second for each domain name to ensure normal DNS resolution under DNS flood attacks. |
Global nodes of Alibaba Cloud DNS
Alibaba Cloud DNS is available in the following nodes: US (Virginia), US (Silicon Valley), India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Japan, UAE, Germany, UK, Hong Kong (China), Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Heyuan, Zhangjiakou, and Chengdu.
Number of domain names bound to an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance
By default, each Alibaba Cloud DNS instance is bound to one domain name, such as example.com. You can increase the number of domain names if you want to bind an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance with more domain names, such as example.cn and example.net. If you have more than 100 domain names, we recommend that you purchase multiple Alibaba Cloud DNS instances.