As some of you may know, I recently moved all my services and infrastructure to Alibaba Cloud (阿里云), being this one of the best decisions I made in 2017 in terms of Cloud Computing. I used several services in the past, from DreamHost to 1&1 and from AWS to DigitalOcean. So far, Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) is the only one that suits my needs.
AWS is a giant, and certainly gives you the power to servify everything you can imagine, but is so huge is hard to grasp all of it, document-wise. DigitalOcean is a good option for the ones that only need some basic compute instances, and is very transparent in terms of pricing and documentation.
Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) brings the best of both giving you the scalability and services of AWS but with the transparency of DigitalOcean. Its documentation is improving every day and the blog has hundreds of entries every month. They also give you a $300 New User Free Credit for those who register.
Let’s get to the details
I know most users will care only about compute instances anyway. So I ran PHP and AB benchmarks in AWS, DigitalOcean and Alibaba Cloud (阿里云), all using equivalent basic instances, the 1GB/1CPU.
Below are the results. Both AWS & Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) performed 400% better than its counterpart in PHP Benchmarking. In the AB testing they both took a third of the time to complete compared, again, to DigitalOcean.
Here is where I demonstrate the real-world capabilities of Alibaba Cloud (阿里云), performing as good as AWS. Having a location in Sydney, Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) is the perfect Cloud solution for any Australian, as not only the application will perform better in-server, it will also load faster to the final user, beating all others in price and is fully PCI compliant. Win-win!
DigitalOcean 1GB/1CPU Instance
--------------------------------------
| PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2017-12-18 03:32:26
Server : [email protected]
PHP version : 7.1.12
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_ifelse : 1.977 sec.
test_loops : 0.780 sec.
test_stringmanipulation : 0.557 sec.
test_math : 0.593 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time: : 3.907 sec.
--------------------------------------
| APACHEBENCH SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 90.094 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 122 129 11.6 128 268
Processing: 295 320 28.2 313 685
Waiting: 168 187 19.5 181 351
Total: 419 450 35.8 441 811
AWS 1GB/1CPU Instance
--------------------------------------
| PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2017-12-18 07:58:08
Server : [email protected]
PHP version : 7.1.12
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math : 0.299 sec.
test_stringmanipulation : 0.383 sec.
test_loops : 0.215 sec.
test_ifelse : 0.177 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time: : 1.074 sec.
--------------------------------------
| APACHEBENCH SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 29.197 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 89 110 41.1 106 690
Processing: 24 36 10.0 31 128
Waiting: 24 35 8.9 31 128
Total: 116 146 42.0 140 724
Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) 1GB/1CPU Instance
--------------------------------------
| PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2017-12-18 11:25:59
Server : [email protected]
PHP version : 7.0.22-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_ifelse : 0.197 sec.
test_loops : 0.219 sec.
test_stringmanipulation : 0.336 sec.
test_math : 0.232 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time: : 0.984 sec.
--------------------------------------
| APACHEBENCH SCRIPT |
--------------------------------------
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 29.632 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 93 114 9.2 114 170
Processing: 26 34 5.3 33 72
Waiting: 25 32 4.4 32 55
Total: 123 147 10.7 147 204
PHP Benchmark Script Used
For the PHP tests, I used PHP benchmark Script, a great and simple php file that easily runs un anywhere. Gives you a really good picture about how the server is performing.
Need help with DevOps/SRE things?
Specializing in Cloud Computing, I can provide cloud solutions and DevOps/SRE expertise. Having extensive AWS experience and also focusing on Chinese & APAC cloud providers I can help you architect single and multicloud platforms including also Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and Huawei Cloud.
Also, if you need help with ICP License Filing, cross-border communications or Site Acceleration in China, I will help you architect the most suitable solution for your business needs. Check the services I offer on Cloud Consulting.
You can also check out my calendar if you want to have a chat.