All Products
Search

This Product

    Elastic Compute Service:Shared instance types

    Document Center

    Elastic Compute Service:Shared instance types

    Last Updated:May 29, 2025

    Shared instances use a CPU-unbound scheduling scheme. Each vCPU is randomly allocated to an idle CPU hyperthread. vCPUs of different instances compete for CPU resources, which causes computing performance to fluctuate when traffic loads are heavy. Shared instances have an availability service level agreement (SLA) but do not have a performance SLA. Different from enterprise-level instances that have exclusive resources, shared instances share resources. As a result, shared instances do not provide consistent computing performance and cost less.

    Note

    Shared instances mainly include shared instances, economy instances, and burstable instances. Currently the following shared instances are available for purchase:

    e, economy instance family

    • Supported scenarios: small and medium-sized websites, development and testing, and lightweight applications.

    • Compute:

      • Offers multiple CPU-to-memory ratios such as 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4.

      • Uses Intel® Xeon® Platinum Scalable processors.

        Note

        Instances of the e instance family use a CPU-unbound scheduling scheme, in which each vCPU is randomly allocated to an idle CPU hyperthread. Compared with enterprise-level instances, e instances share resources and cost less.

    • Storage:

      • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.

      • Supports Enterprise SSDs (ESSDs), ESSD Entry disks (recommended), and ESSD AutoPL disks.

        Note

        Due to the limits of economy instance types, ESSDs at performance levels 1, 2, and 3 (PL1, PL2, and PL3 ESSDs) cannot deliver their maximum performance on e instances. We recommend that you select ESSD Entry disks or PL0 ESSDs for the instances.

    • Network:

      • Supports IPv4 and IPv6. For information about IPv6 communication, see IPv6 communication.

      • Supports only virtual private clouds (VPCs).

      • Provides high network performance based on large computing capacity.

    e instance types

    Instance type

    vCPUs

    Memory size (GiB)

    Baseline/burst bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    NIC queues

    ENIs

    Private IPv4 addresses per ENI

    IPv6 addresses per ENI

    Disk baseline/burst IOPS

    Disk baseline/burst bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    ecs.e-c4m1.large

    2

    0.5

    0.2/burstable up to 2

    1

    2

    2

    1

    8,000/none

    0.4/none

    ecs.e-c2m1.large

    2

    1

    0.2/burstable up to 2

    1

    2

    2

    1

    8,000/none

    0.4/none

    ecs.e-c1m1.large

    2

    2.0

    0.2/burstable up to 2

    1

    2

    2

    1

    8,000/none

    0.4/none

    ecs.e-c1m2.large

    2

    4.0

    0.2/burstable up to 2

    1

    2

    2

    1

    8,000/none

    0.4/none

    ecs.e-c1m4.large

    2

    8.0

    0.4/burstable up to 2

    1

    2

    2

    1

    16,000/none

    0.8/none

    ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge

    4

    8.0

    0.4/burstable up to 3

    1

    2

    6

    1

    16,000/none

    0.8/none

    ecs.e-c1m4.xlarge

    4

    16.0

    0.8/burstable up to 4

    1

    2

    6

    1

    16,000/none

    0.8/none

    ecs.e-c1m2.2xlarge

    8

    16.0

    0.8/burstable up to 6

    2

    2

    6

    1

    16,000/none

    0.8/none

    ecs.e-c1m4.2xlarge

    8

    32.0

    1.2/burstable up to 6

    2

    2

    6

    1

    16,000/none

    0.8/none

    Note

    • The following limits apply to the ecs.e-c4m1.large, ecs.e-c2m1.large, ecs.e-c1m1.large, ecs.e-c1m2.large, and ecs.e-c1m4.large instance types:

      • Secondary elastic network interfaces (ENIs) cannot be bound to ecs.e-c1m1.large, ecs.e-c1m2.large, or ecs.e-c1m4.large instances during instance creation and can be bound after the instances are created.

      • You can bind secondary ENIs to or unbind secondary ENIs from ecs.e-c1m1.large, ecs.e-c1m2.large, and ecs.e-c1m4.large instances only when the instances are in the Stopped state.

    • The ecs.e-c4m1.large and ecs.e-c2m1.large1.large instance types are available for purchase only in the following regions: China (Hong Kong), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), Japan (Tokyo), South Korea (Seoul), UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), US (Virginia), and US (Silicon Valley).

    xn4, n4, mn4, and e4, previous-generation shared instance families

    Features:

    • Offer multiple CPU-to-memory ratios.

    • Use 2.5 GHz Intel® Xeon® processors.

    • Use DDR4 memory.

    • Are instance families in which all instances are I/O optimized.

    • Support only IPv4.

    Instance family

    Description

    vCPU-to-memory ratio

    Scenario

    xn4

    Shared compact instance family

    1:1

    • Web frontend applications

    • Lightweight applications and microservices

    • Development and testing environments

    n4

    Shared compute instance family

    1:2

    • Websites and web applications

    • Development environments, servers, code repositories, microservices, and testing and staging environments

    • Lightweight enterprise-level applications

    mn4

    Shared general-purpose instance family

    1:4

    • Websites and web applications

    • Lightweight databases and caches

    • Integrated applications and lightweight enterprise-level services

    e4

    Shared memory instance family

    1:8

    • Applications that require a large amount of memory

    • Lightweight databases and caches

    xn4 instance types

    Instance type

    vCPUs

    Memory size (GiB)

    Network baseline bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    Packet forwarding rate (pps)

    Network interface controller (NIC) queues

    ENIs

    Private IPv4 addresses per ENI

    ecs.xn4.small

    1

    1.0

    0.5

    5

    1

    2

    2

    Note

    • Secondary ENIs cannot be bound to instances of this instance family during instance creation and can be bound after the instances are created. You can bind secondary ENIs to or unbind secondary ENIs from an ecs.xn4.small instance only when the instance is in the Stopped state.

    • For more information about these specifications, see the "Instance type specifications" section in Overview of instance families. Packet forwarding rates vary significantly based on business scenarios. We recommend that you perform business stress tests on instances to choose appropriate instance types.

    n4 instance types

    Instance type

    vCPUs

    Memory size (GiB)

    Network baseline bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    Packet forwarding rate (pps)

    NIC queues

    ENIs

    Private IPv4 addresses per ENI

    ecs.n4.small

    1

    2.0

    0.5

    5

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.n4.large

    2

    4.0

    0.5

    10

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.n4.xlarge

    4

    8.0

    0.8

    15

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.n4.2xlarge

    8

    16.0

    1.2

    30

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.n4.4xlarge

    16

    32.0

    2.5

    40

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.n4.8xlarge

    32

    64.0

    5.0

    50

    2

    2

    6

    Note

    • Secondary ENIs cannot be bound to instances of this instance family during instance creation and can be bound after the instances are created. You can bind secondary ENIs to or unbind secondary ENIs from instances of specific instance types, including ecs.n4.small and ecs.n4.large, only when the instances are in the Stopped state.

    • For more information about these specifications, see the "Instance type specifications" section in Overview of instance families. Packet forwarding rates vary significantly based on business scenarios. We recommend that you perform business stress tests on instances to choose appropriate instance types.

    mn4 instance types

    Instance type

    vCPUs

    Memory size (GiB)

    Network baseline bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    Packet forwarding rate (pps)

    NIC queues

    ENIs

    Private IPv4 addresses per ENI

    ecs.mn4.small

    1

    4.0

    0.5

    5

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.mn4.large

    2

    8.0

    0.5

    10

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.mn4.xlarge

    4

    16.0

    0.8

    15

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.mn4.2xlarge

    8

    32.0

    1.2

    30

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.mn4.4xlarge

    16

    64.0

    2.5

    40

    1

    8

    6

    ecs.mn4.8xlarge

    32

    128.0

    5

    50

    2

    8

    6

    Note

    • Secondary ENIs cannot be bound to instances of this instance family during instance creation and can be bound after the instances are created. You can bind secondary ENIs to or unbind secondary ENIs from instances of specific instance types, including ecs.mn4.small and ecs.mn4.large, only when the instances are in the Stopped state.

    • For more information about these specifications, see the "Instance type specifications" section in Overview of instance families. Packet forwarding rates vary significantly based on business scenarios. We recommend that you perform business stress tests on instances to choose appropriate instance types.

    e4 instance types

    Instance type

    vCPUs

    Memory size (GiB)

    Network baseline bandwidth (Gbit/s)

    Packet forwarding rate (pps)

    NIC queues

    ENIs

    Private IPv4 addresses per ENI

    ecs.e4.small

    1

    8.0

    0.5

    5

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.e4.large

    2

    16.0

    0.5

    10

    1

    2

    2

    ecs.e4.xlarge

    4

    32.0

    0.8

    15

    1

    2

    6

    ecs.e4.2xlarge

    8

    64.0

    1.2

    30

    1

    3

    6

    ecs.e4.4xlarge

    16

    128.0

    2.5

    40

    1

    8

    6

    Note

    • Secondary ENIs cannot be bound to instances of this instance family during instance creation and can be bound after the instances are created. You can bind secondary ENIs to or unbind secondary ENIs from instances of specific instance types, including ecs.e4.small and ecs.e4.large, only when the instances are in the Stopped state.

    • For more information about these specifications, see the "Instance type specifications" section in Overview of instance families. Packet forwarding rates vary significantly based on business scenarios. We recommend that you perform business stress tests on instances to choose appropriate instance types.