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Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Alibaba Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

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
31
Ranking in other categories
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (9th)
Alibaba Cloud
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is 7.1%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 12.0%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)7.1%
Alibaba Cloud12.0%
Other80.9%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Graham - PeerSpot reviewer
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 Although I used to create images, I found them outdated and prefer installing new images.
Min HtetOo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that you can do any Linux distribution is great. You can try out any Linux distribution, even some of the more obscure ones, and they are always keeping them up-to-date. As soon as a new distribution comes out, it is on the platform pretty much the same day, which I find really helpful."
"Linode offers cost-effective pricing, and it enables me to swiftly deploy my services."
"The creation of instances is very good, as is their interface which is not complex and is easy to use. With the dashboard it is easy to create a new instance and add your favorite things. You can add Debian, Ubuntu, or CentOS, or any flavor of operating system. You can select the RAM for your instance as well."
"The simplicity by which you can handle your inventory is one of the things I like the most."
"The fact that you can get a person on the phone has just been fantastic."
"I rate Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) a 10."
"Linode has many other cloud servers across the globe."
"Generally speaking, I have not found any faults using Linode. For what we wanted, they provided a complete solution."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"We use the solution to run VMs."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable. It's quite inexpensive."
"It is easy to set up."
"Alibaba Cloud allows for easy setup of mirror sites and backup servers, ensuring data redundancy and high availability."
 

Cons

"They are already working on the firewalls and VLANs, which need improvement, and are now in beta. I am on the beta program for the firewalls, but I can't use it yet because they are only in Mumbai and Australia, and I am not in those data centres. This is the one thing that I have been waiting for almost since the day that I joined them, so it is nice that they are doing that. The VLANs will be an improvement as well, and I am keen and waiting for that."
"The main area for improvement is the lack of a backup feature to the local hard disk or storage."
"There is no notification from the company regarding upgrades."
"I don't know how all of their services work, but my understanding is that they're not offering the entry-level machine for someone who just wants to own their own web page."
"They recently changed the web interface and although the older one did not look as good, the new one is less responsive."
"Because they are a smaller company, they do not have, for example, all of the ways for authentication that Amazon or Azure has."
"I would like to see more seamless integration with backup, although it's pretty easy to do."
"Everything is up-to-date for a small business. But for big business, they need to improve certain things. For example, there should be better security."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"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."
"It is not robust."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"A big area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is its support. Another area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is SDK-based service because sometimes, the SDKs don't work correctly. Support for API-based services also needs improvement in Alibaba Cloud because, at the moment, it's not that stable."
"Alibaba Cloud has some problems related to latency and connection issues. If you go for a cloud solution provider, you will need to access the Internet, which may result in latency and bandwidth issues, leading to slowness in operations."
"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There might be something a little bit cheaper but I find it very fair and competitive, and nothing to complain about."
"Overall, it is cost-effective. They offer flat, no lock-in pricing. We also get discounts. As compared to its competitors, it is costly, but at the same time, it has many features."
"The pricing model is simple."
"It is quite affordable, which makes it a great choice."
"is a little cheaper than Google or Amazon, more or less on par with the other competitors."
"The solution is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The monthly cost depends on your requirements."
"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."
"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."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"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."
"The product is not that expensive."
"The cost of Alibaba Cloud is lower than that of AWS, but I feel that its price is on the higher end of the spectrum. Alibaba Cloud charges its users a price in dollars"
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

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 ...
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.
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...
What do you like most about Alibaba Cloud?
ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution.
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.
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,...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Best Buy, Panasonic, Giphy, Marco Polo, World Health Organization, Font Squirrel
Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.