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Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon AWS 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

Alibaba Cloud
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
8th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon AWS
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
255
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 12.5%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon AWS is 13.6%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Aderonke  Adeyegbe - PeerSpot reviewer
Good storage, great for smaller companies, and has impressive support
We're all aware that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation, and we believe that Alibaba, due to its pedigree, has what it takes to take small businesses to the cloud. It's a game-changer, for sure. The storage is very useful. It is easy to set up. Technical support is good. It is quite stable.
Arun Srivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for automatic scaling of resources and provides built-in firewalls and security features, eliminating the need for external security solutions
One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots. You're speaking to chatbots, and that can sometimes be frustrating because there's no person on the other side. AI is not a substitute for a person. AWS marketplace is very strong, but somehow AWS doesn't promote it much. They have a huge customer base across the globe, and if products were launched in their marketplace, they could sell like hotcakes. They should improve their marketplace and promote the same product across the globe. They can take a cut, but they should promote it. That's something they don't do very much. So, AWS should promote its marketplace software. The company should promote it aggressively. Currently, they keep it very subtle. If you ask for it, they'll help you out. But they don't seem to advertise, "You're building a product on our platform? Why don't you sell it in our marketplace?" Improvement in AI: AWS is a little behind Microsoft Azure in terms of AI. AWS is still getting there, but the kind of examples and help files available in Azure for AI are much better. So AWS still needs to work on its AI functionality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."
"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."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"The installation is easy."
"AWS is easy to manage."
"AWS is easier to implement than other solutions, and it's more reliable."
"It scales well and is flexible."
"You can build and release applications quickly with AWS instead of waiting for months to get the necessary hardware. That's the real benefit. The time-to-market for developing applications is much shorter."
"The interface of the solution is good."
"One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology."
"The best thing is scalability."
"Using AWS is really helpful for saving costs."
 

Cons

"The solution should have more integration."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"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."
"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."
"Users use websites as a tutorial. However, the Alibaba Cloud website has the content, and the scripts are copied from Amazon Web Services. We had received customer feedback where the customer asked us to get formulate original content instead of copying from Amazon Web Services. It’s very odd and awkward."
"The solution could have better security and more integration with other platforms."
"One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots."
"It's a good cloud, however, if I compare it with Azure, Azure is more of a feature-rich cloud."
"It could be made cheaper. I know we spend a lot of money each month on AWS."
"The product would be better if it was more secure."
"The initial setup is not easy at all."
"One area that could be improved is in data management. They could improve on the data side. For example, I see others with better cloud services and larger data computing capabilities."
"As far as the automation is concerned, the backups should be scaled."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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"
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"The product is not that expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"You are not paying a licensing fee, you pay for consumption."
"AWS is cost-effective because it saves time. Faster deployments and testing make it very valuable."
"It's an expensive product."
"When compared to GCP, Google, or Azure, the price could be lower."
"I find Amazon AWS very expensive compare to Microsoft Azure."
"Maintain a good budget, plan the consumption"
"A few of our customers pay for it yearly and monthly. Sometimes, when it's related to the data, the pricing seems to be high. It could be cheaper on a transactional basis."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it an eight out of ten."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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,...
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Also Known As

No data available
Amazon Web Services, AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Amazon AWS and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.