Compare DNS Public Zone Editions to Find the Right Fit - Alibaba Cloud DNS

Alibaba Cloud DNS offers a free tier and three paid editions through its Public Zone service. This document compares features, resolution limits, and security options across editions.

How to choose an edition

Scenario	Recommended edition
Testing or development environments with no SLA requirement	Free Edition
Individual developer with a personal site or small project	Personal Edition
Enterprise needing province-level resolution, Secondary DNS, or 1-second TTL	Enterprise Ultimate Edition
Enterprise requiring dedicated expert support, unlimited DNS records, or built-in Full Protection	Exclusive Edition

All three paid editions provide 100% monthly availability Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Differences to consider:

TTL granularity -- Free Edition and Personal Edition have a minimum TTL of 600 seconds. Enterprise Ultimate Edition and Exclusive Edition support a 1-second minimum TTL for fast failover.
Intelligent Resolution depth -- Free Edition and Personal Edition resolve by broad region and a limited set of carriers. Enterprise Ultimate Edition and Exclusive Edition support province-level and country-level resolution, 14 carriers, cloud-provider-based routing, and custom lines.
Security -- Free Edition does not support DNS security protection. Personal Edition and Enterprise Ultimate Edition offer optional Basic Protection and Full Protection. Exclusive Edition includes Full Protection by default.
Scalability -- Exclusive Edition removes hard limits on DNS records, subdomain levels, URL forwarding, alias records, and load balancing IPs.

Note

Personal Edition is for individual developers only. Enterprise users cannot purchase new Personal Edition instances, but existing instances can still be renewed.

Note

Alibaba Cloud DNS supports seamless instance upgrades. For more information, see Upgrade, detach, replace, or downgrade an instance.

Feature comparison

Important

Purchase DNS security services to increase the DNS resolution query limit and prevent resolution failures when the number of requests reaches the limit.
In scenarios that involve frequent batch changes to DNS records, use the DNS record backup feature to quickly revert incorrect changes.
The number of attached domain names is based on the number of primary domain names. If you host a subdomain separately, it counts as a primary domain name.

Infrastructure and resolution

Feature	Free Edition	Personal Edition	Enterprise Ultimate Edition	Exclusive Edition
Availability SLA	No availability guarantee	100% monthly	100% monthly	100% monthly
DNS nodes	4 in the Chinese mainland	12 in the Chinese mainland, 15 outside China	12 in the Chinese mainland, 15 outside China	12 in the Chinese mainland, 15 outside China
Subdomain hosting level	Level 16	Level 16	Level 16	Level 16
DNS records per primary domain name	100,000	100,000	100,000	Unlimited\*
Subdomain levels	Level 10	Level 20	Level 20	Unlimited\*
Minimum TTL	600 seconds	600 seconds	1 second	1 second
DNS resolution peak	Up to 20,000 requests per second	Up to 200,000 queries per second (QPS)	Up to 200,000 QPS	Up to 200,000 QPS
Domain names per instance	--	1 by default, up to 100,000	1 by default, up to 100,000	1 by default, up to 100,000

Intelligent Resolution

Intelligent Resolution returns DNS results based on the requester's geographic location and carrier, reducing latency and improving access speed. For more information, see Intelligent Resolution.

Capability	Free Edition	Personal Edition	Enterprise Ultimate Edition	Exclusive Edition
Region	Regions in China, outside China	Mainland China regions, outside China	the Chinese mainland (by province), outside China (by country)	the Chinese mainland (by province), outside China (by country)
Cloud provider	--	--	Alibaba Cloud (the Chinese mainland), Alibaba Cloud (outside China)	Alibaba Cloud (the Chinese mainland), Alibaba Cloud (outside China)
Carriers	China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, CERNET	China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, CERNET, China Broadcasting Network, Dr. Peng	China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng, CERNET, China Broadcasting Network, CSTNET, Chilian Network, Founder Broadband, Topway, Wasu, Oriental Cable Network, Haokuan Network, Gehua	China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng, CERNET, China Broadcasting Network, CSTNET, Chilian Network, Founder Broadband, Topway, Wasu, Oriental Cable Network, Haokuan Network, Gehua
Search engines	Google, Baidu, Bing, Sogou, Qihoo, Youdao	Google, Baidu, Bing, Sogou, Qihoo, Youdao, Yahoo	Google, Baidu, Bing, Sogou, Qihoo, Youdao, Yahoo (in and outside the Chinese mainland)	Google, Baidu, Bing, Sogou, Qihoo, Youdao, Yahoo (in and outside the Chinese mainland)
Custom lines	--	--	Supported	Supported

Additional features

Feature	Free Edition	Personal Edition	Enterprise Ultimate Edition	Exclusive Edition
URL forwarding (per domain name)	2	5	10	Unlimited\*
Weight configuration (A, CNAME, and AAAA records)	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
Alias record type (per domain name)	--	--	10	Unlimited\*
Load balancing (IPs per domain name per line)	10	100	100	Unlimited\*
Request statistics (subdomain level)	--	Supported	Supported	Supported
IPv6 DNS	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
Secondary DNS	--	--	Supported	Supported
DNS record backup	--	--	Supported	Supported
DNSSEC	--	Supported	Supported	Supported

Support

Service	Free Edition	Personal Edition	Enterprise Ultimate Edition	Exclusive Edition
Dedicated support	--	DingTalk user support group	DingTalk user support group	1-on-1 expert service
Resolution change requests	--	--	--	6 per year
DNS architecture consultation	--	--	--	1 per year

\* Unlimited means you can request a parameter limit increase if you exceed the default system limit, provided the product remains stable and secure.

DNS security protection

Free Edition does not support DNS security protection. Paid editions offer two tiers:

Security tier	Protection capacity	Description
Basic Protection	Up to 10 million QPS per domain name	Protects domain names attached to a Public Zone instance against DNS attacks.
Full Protection	Over 100 million QPS per domain name	Provides full DNS attack protection. Ensures normal DNS resolution during DNS flood attacks.

Edition	DNS attack protection
Free Edition	Not supported
Personal Edition	Optional (Basic Protection or Full Protection)
Enterprise Ultimate Edition	Optional (Basic Protection or Full Protection)
Exclusive Edition	Full Protection included by default

FAQ

Can I downgrade an instance?

Alibaba Cloud DNS does not support direct instance downgrades. To move to a lower edition, replace the instance that your domain name is attached to with a paid instance of a lower edition. You can also reduce the security protection level or the number of domain names using this method.

After you attach the domain name to the new instance, unsubscribe from the old instance. For more information, see Upgrade, detach, replace, or downgrade an instance and Unsubscribe from an instance.

Where are the Public Zone points of presence?

Public Zone points of presence (POPs) are distributed across the following locations:

US (Virginia), US (Silicon Valley), Mexico, Indonesia (Jakarta), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Singapore, Japan (Tokyo), SAU (Riyadh - Partner Region), UAE (Dubai), Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London), Thailand (Bangkok), South Korea (Seoul), Philippines (Manila), China (Hong Kong), China (Beijing), China (Shanghai), China (Shenzhen), China (Hangzhou), China (Chengdu), China (Qingdao), Dalian, Xi'an, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, China (Nanjing - Local Region - Decommissioning).

Cluster deployment is subject to change based on Alibaba Cloud infrastructure development and is not covered by the SLA.

What does "number of domain names per instance" mean?

Each Public Zone instance supports one primary domain name by default (for example, example.com). To host additional domain names such as example.cn or example.net on the same instance, increase the domain name count. All paid editions support up to 100,000 domain names per instance.