Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Alibaba Cloud comparison

Akamai and Alibaba are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Akamai is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.1, while Alibaba is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.4. Akamai holds a 6.3% mindshare in ISI, compared to Alibaba’s 13.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Alibaba users who would recommend it.

Akamai Connected Cloud (Lin...

Read 31 Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) reviews

7,902 Views
6,717 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Alibaba Cloud

Read 19 Alibaba Cloud reviews

6,093 Views
6,093 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Akamai Connected Cloud (Lin...

Alibaba Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Alibaba Cloud and Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) compete in the cloud service category. Alibaba Cloud may have the edge for businesses focused on diverse infrastructure needs and cost-effectiveness in Asia, while Linode appeals with simplicity and speed.

Features: Alibaba Cloud offers secure hosting, a variety of infrastructure services, and user-friendly compute solutions, making it ideal for businesses with local data requirements. It is generally considered more cost-effective than AWS and Google Cloud. Linode, part of Akamai Connected Cloud, emphasizes simplicity and cost-effectiveness, with notable speed and flexibility in scaling resources. Users appreciate Linode’s straightforward Linux-based offerings and its global data center network.

Room for Improvement: Alibaba Cloud users suggest improvements in user-friendliness, API support, and SDK functions, with existing concerns about latency and customer support efficiency. Linode can enhance offerings by expanding data center locations, providing managed databases, and developing sophisticated DevOps workflows along with stricter security features on par with larger providers.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Alibaba Cloud and Linode offer public, private, and hybrid cloud deployment options. Alibaba Cloud's technical support is recognized for its responsiveness but would benefit from enhanced documentation and knowledge. Linode is praised for simplicity and ease of use; however, there's a call for improvements in technical support availability and depth.

Pricing and ROI: Alibaba Cloud is acknowledged for competitive pricing and is often cheaper than AWS and Azure, with a pay-as-you-go model aiding effective cost management. Linode offers predictable, transparent pricing, valued for budget-friendly options, especially for smaller applications, and is compared favorably against the complex pricing of larger providers like AWS and Azure.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Akamai Connected Cloud (Lin...

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (9th)

Alibaba Cloud

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

8th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is 6.3%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 13.0%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Julio Graham

Managing Director at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Support resolves issues quickly and helps in expanding storage efficiently

Their support is really good. I can ask anything at any time, and they are able to resolve issues like reinstating deleted Linodes. They include features like retaining deleted Linodes for 30 days. They offer volumes and object storage, which I can add quickly, and they are high speed. I can easily expand space for database work. Although I used to create images, I found them outdated and prefer installing new images.

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Min HtetOo

Chief Marketing Officer at Soft Intelligence

The solution is useful for application development, but the user interface and user experience must be improved

The product must be made easier to use. The design is a bit tricky. When we log in to the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace and browse products, they look very small. The user experience must be improved. Alibaba Cloud must increase its partner network and brand awareness in our country. It will give our customers more opportunities to scale and save in the long run.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The number one thing we like about Linode isn't necessarily a service, it's their support. We've found their support to be absolutely fantastic. They've been so outstanding with their support. Every single time we call them and we ask for advice or help, they go above and beyond and it's really made us appreciate what they do."

"We can scale up and down as we require."

"Linode offers cost-effective pricing, and it enables me to swiftly deploy my services."

"Overall, Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is easy to use and has a fair price, making it accessible and straightforward, which is crucial when compared to other complex solutions."

"The most valuable feature is the static IP address, which has been very helpful for being able to log into the same address over the course of more than a decade."

"The virtual machine configuration tool is very helpful for setting up a new server or for modifying an existing server."

"The most valuable aspects of Linode are the virtual server and the clean server. I install what I need on it."

"I rate Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) a 10."

More Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) pros

"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."

"Alibaba Cloud allows for easy setup of mirror sites and backup servers, ensuring data redundancy and high availability."

"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."

"Flexibility and costs were probably the most important thing for us. The cost was one of the big factors for choosing Alibaba Cloud relative to other cloud solutions, especially in Asia"

"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."

"The installation is easy."

"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."

"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."

More Alibaba Cloud pros

Cons

"I've had some difficulties with some of their IP addresses being banned by certain mail servers."

"The Cloud Manager interface sometimes feels slow, particularly when accessed from Asia."

"The main area for improvement is the lack of a backup feature to the local hard disk or storage."

"I would like Linode (without cluttering things) to provide some type of DevOps workflow where people are configuring their pipelines from running their tests and deploying to their test server. Once approved by clicking a button, it just gets deployed to production. I would like something like Azure DevOps, which we use for large applications, and would be something nice to have in Linode."

"It would be helpful if they offered a service where they handle the Linux security."

"Our primary concern is always the latency."

"I would like to see more seamless integration with backup, although it's pretty easy to do."

"Its cost can be improved."

More Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) cons

"Regarding security issues, Alibaba Cloud is more complex and better suited for developers and R&D teams. On the other hand, Google Cloud is more convenient for new users."

"From the improvement point of view, there are lots of issues that we are facing. In all the areas, it seems like it is not mature. For example, a customer wants to provision some VM that has many configurations. If I want to show the price to the customer, it is very challenging. The SDK that Alibaba has provided is very limited. We can have the pricing for VM, but we cannot have pricing for RDS databases or some other services. This is a big concern area for us. They should put more effort into the SDKs or APIs that they provide, for example, pricing APIs or pricing SDK. They do not provide support for most of the services they provide. For example, if I want to get the price of MongoDB, that SDK is not available from Alibaba. Similarly, robust API support is required for S3, which is OSS or Object Storage, so that we can read the data in a faster manner, for example, in chunks. We have raised many issues with the Alibaba support team, and they have been fixing the issues after we report them."

"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."

"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."

"The user experience must be improved."

"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."

More Alibaba Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other service providers, like AWS and Google, the cost of services are much less and more affordable. We are saving about 90 percent by going with Linode versus other cloud providers."

"The biggest benefit of Linode is the pricing. It's the best deal in the business... Their pricing model is also very simple compared to Azure. I don't understand why Azure doesn't price things the way that Linode does."

"I pay just over £20 per month and have done so ever since I started eight years ago, which to me is good value."

"I pay $5 per month for each of three servers, for a total of $15 per month, and I normally prepay a few months in advance."

"Pricing is very good and flexible, according to the resources required."

"There might be something a little bit cheaper but I find it very fair and competitive, and nothing to complain about."

"The pricing model is very simple. If you have very small applications, you can use the plan which costs $5 per month. That gives you 50 GB of memory and almost 1 GB of RAM. If you need more than you have to select the next plan which is $10 per month, which has about 70 GB of data and 2 GB of RAM."

"The solution is neither cheap nor expensive."

More Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) pricing and cost advice

"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud. Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."

"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."

"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."

"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."

"I'm not sure about the exact pricing, but let's just say if it cost a dollar for Amazon AWS, it was closer to 70 to 80 cents for Alibaba Cloud."

"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."

"I noticed on the pricing that it's quite expensive. It is the price you pay for making a practical choice for enterprise-level companies since it has so many features and it fits an enterprise-level company just like our company right now."

More Alibaba Cloud pricing and cost advice

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865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Comms Service Provider

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Linode?

When I started using Linode, I found its functionality easy to navigate, user-friendly and responsive to my needs. It provides clear reminders about services I'm not using, like DNS zones, which I ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Linode?

I find Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)'s pricing very competitive. They never charge extra without improvements. I always receive more features for the same price.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Linode?

I am not satisfied with the customization options from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) because I still haven't tried any new capabilities provided by them yet. I am still keeping it as a virtual se...

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What do you like most about Alibaba Cloud?

ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alibaba Cloud?

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Alibaba Cloud?

Alibaba Cloud needs to improve emails. Its pricing can also be lower. Regarding security issues, Alibaba Cloud is more complex and better suited for developers and R&D teams. On the other hand,...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

Compared 64% of the time

Google Cloud vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

Compared 12% of the time

Cloudflare vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

Compared 5% of the time

Google Kubernetes Engine vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 29% of the time

Google Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 26% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

Tencent Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

More Alibaba Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud

August 2025

Download Alibaba Cloud product report

Overview

Simplify your cloud infrastructure with our Linux virtual machines and robust set of tools to develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier.

Linode believes that in order to accelerate innovation in the cloud, virtual computing must be more accessible, affordable, and simple. Our infrastructure-as-a-service platform is deployed across 11 global markets from our data centers around the world and is supported by our Next Generation Network, advanced APIs, comprehensive services, and vast library of educational resources. Linode products, services, and people enable developers and businesses to build, deploy, and scale applications more easily and cost-effectively in the cloud.

Increase storage capacity with additional Block Storage or S3-compatible Object Storage. Add instant Backups with complete independency to your stack. Ensure your applications and services are highly-available with Linode NodeBalancers. Deploy Kubernetes clusters with our fully-managed container orchestration engine.

Linode Pricing Page

CPU, transfer, storage, and RAM bundled into one simple price.

>> TRY FREE WITH $100 IN CREDIT

Akamai

Alibaba Cloud offers a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support growing enterprises worldwide, including data storage, relational databases, big-data processing, and content delivery networks.

Alibaba

Sample Customers

Best Buy, Panasonic, Giphy, Marco Polo, World Health Organization, Font Squirrel

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint

Buyer's Guide

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud

July 2025

Free Report: Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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