Tencent Cloud EdgeOne vs. Alibaba Cloud ESA: Free CDN Comparisons

Recently, Chinese company Tencent Cloud launched a free CDN promotion for EdgeOne, and Alibaba Cloud followed suit with a free ESA. After some research, I discovered that there are some key differences between the two.

1. Customize the origin port

I think it is possible to do without, but it is essential to have:

• Tencent Cloud EdgeOne Free Plan: Ports can be changed at will
  No matter whether your source site uses 8080, 8888 or other non-default ports, you can just fill it in the background without any additional operations. It will run immediately after setting it up. When I tested it, I set the source site to 8090. After the acceleration, there was no problem accessing it without any restrictions.
• Alibaba Cloud ESA Free Plan: Ports are locked and can only be configured with a paid plan
  Alibaba Cloud is quite rigid. The free version only uses the default ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). I initially used port 81 for my origin server, but when I tried to set it up, I was immediately prompted with "The free version doesn't support this port." Want to change? I'd have to upgrade to a paid plan. If your origin server doesn't use the default port for security reasons or conflicts, the free version of Alibaba Cloud is essentially useless.

2. Alibaba ESA free plan limits subdomain additions

3. Restrictions on Unregistered Domain Names

The use of Chinese network lines requires registration. For unregistered domain names, you can only choose the global (excluding mainland China) line. It is not possible to use the source mainland server.
Otherwise, errors 520 and 525 will be reported, and the connection will probably be blocked by the government firewall.

4. Conclusion: Is it easy to use? It depends on your specific needs

If you have a registered domain name, both are acceptable. If you need a custom source port (not 80/443),Use EdgeOne

Unregistered domain name, international lines are fine, but Chinese network lines are limited - no mainland optimization