Among many overseas servers, Hong Kong servers and Tokyo servers have attracted widespread attention due to their geographical proximity and good network connection. So, in the actual application scenarios for users in mainland China, which one is more suitable for use? This is not a simple question of choosing one from the other, but requires in-depth comparison from multiple dimensions such as network connection, latency performance, stability, bandwidth price, policy compliance, and service ecology.
Geographical and network distance: Hong Kong is closer, but Tokyo is also in the close core circle
From a geographical point of view, Hong Kong is closest to mainland China (especially the southern region), especially Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other places, the physical distance to Hong Kong is only tens of kilometers. At the network level, Hong Kong is almost the preferred springboard for international exports of all operators, with a wide range of CN2, CUVIP, CMI and other line resources. Direct routing and ultra-low latency can be achieved between the mainland and Hong Kong.
Although Tokyo is an overseas remote node, due to Japan's developed network infrastructure, some Tokyo computer rooms are connected to CN2 GIA and backbone backhaul optimization lines, and the access performance to South China and East China is also very good, and the delay is often stable within 50~90ms, which is significantly lower than that in Europe and the United States.
Comprehensive judgment:
Hong Kong servers have more advantages in latency and routing directness; although Tokyo servers are a little far away, they can also achieve a better experience through line optimization, especially some CN2 optimized line Tokyo nodes.
Access speed and bandwidth quality: Hong Kong is congested during peak hours, Tokyo has more bandwidth
Speed performance is not only determined by distance, but also depends on factors such as bandwidth resources, user distribution, and peak network load.
Features of Hong Kong servers:
Advantages: fast access speed at close range, low latency, and fast instantaneous connection;
Disadvantages: expensive and limited bandwidth resources, prone to congestion during peak hours;
Some ISPs have cross-border bandwidth congestion during evening peak hours, which is not friendly to telecom users.
Features of Tokyo servers:
Advantages: generally large bandwidth, cheap price, and high overall download and upload performance;
Disadvantages: lines need to be optimized, otherwise there may be problems such as detours and packet loss.
In actual tests, it was found that Hong Kong servers have obvious speed advantages during non-peak hours, but are prone to jamming when traffic is dense at night and on holidays. Tokyo servers perform more stably in scenarios with large bandwidth requirements (such as video distribution, large file downloads, and live streaming).
Price and resource costs: Tokyo servers are more cost-effective
When renting a server or cloud instance, price factors are an important factor affecting corporate decision-making.
Price situation of Hong Kong servers:
Scarce bandwidth resources lead to high unit prices. The monthly rent for ordinary 1M bandwidth starts at 100 yuan. High bandwidth prices are very expensive, and the price of high-quality lines (such as CN2 GIA) doubles;
Price advantages of Tokyo servers:
Japan has abundant IDC resources and many data center service providers to choose from; sufficient bandwidth, and common configurations can provide 20M~100M unlimited traffic; under the same configuration, the price is often 20~40% lower than Hong Kong; operation and maintenance services and hardware update cycles are more transparent. Especially for medium and large deployments, SaaS platforms, streaming media services, data transfer nodes, etc., Tokyo servers are significantly more cost-effective.
Summary: How to choose a server that is more suitable for the mainland market?
From the overall performance:
If the goal is to access the mainland with low latency, take into account compliance, simplify operation and maintenance, and quickly go online, the Hong Kong server is still the first choice;
If you pursue bandwidth cost-effectiveness, large-scale data transmission, and low requirements for the service ecosystem, the Tokyo server will be more attractive;
For teams with overseas multi-node deployment experience, you can consider Tokyo as the main node and Hong Kong as an accelerated export or transit reverse generation node, combined with CDN optimization, to improve the user experience in all aspects.
No matter which node you choose, it is recommended to cooperate with CN2 to optimize the line, high protection system, monitoring alarm mechanism, and regular network link evaluation. Server selection is never "expensive is good", but "the one that suits your business traffic and operation strategy is the best."
