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Alibaba Cloud vs DigitalOcean comparison

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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)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DigitalOcean
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.5%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DigitalOcean is 2.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alibaba Cloud5.5%
DigitalOcean2.5%
Other92.0%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Min HtetOo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
Enjoy cost-effective hosting with flexible deployment and room for payment model improvement
I use only one feature, which is the droplet, and it has been satisfactory. The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well. I also have total freedom over what I use, and I have a better user interface and documentation compared to Oracle.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"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"
"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable; it's quite inexpensive and the solution is very secure."
"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud, and Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"Alibaba also offers a lot of flexibility compared to Google Cloud, where you can only use Google's Tools."
"It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some static Angular applications, it was a clear choice to run them on Cloudflare, which performs very well in this context. All the assets go on DigitalOcean."
"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can create a phishing server and use it."
"The managed database service is what I really like as it really simplifies the setup of a database infrastructure."
"The Droplets feature is beneficial and easy to use."
"The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well."
"The team was particularly satisfied with the flexibility of the service and the rules for managing virtual machines on DigitalOcean."
"Digital Ocean really hit the sweet spot."
"I like Kubernetes integration."
 

Cons

"The solution should have more integration."
"I would not recommend the solution to others."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"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."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"The platform could enhance its features, particularly for ETL processes. Additionally, more integration features would be highly beneficial."
"I would like to see an automation feature added to send emails out using the open-source solution."
"There are disadvantages, such as machines getting stuck or disconnected, requiring restarts."
"I think something needs to be done in terms of technical support."
"The technical support for this solution could be improved."
"I would like to see improvements to the logging and user interface. The verification process could be more streamlined."
"I think the support can be improved, and I also think DigitalOcean needs to work on the reliability of the droplets."
"We found the solution to be a bit expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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'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."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"The product is not that expensive."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"The price of DigitalOcean could be lower. It is expensive. it's higher than other solutions available in the market. We pay approximately $20 to $25 a month to use the solution. The price we pay is for the shared CPU option."
"I am using the cheapest option available, which costs $50 per month."
"The pricing is cheap."
"This is a pay as you go solution. There is no license and it is usage based."
"The program is cheaper than others."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"The pricing is moderate and reasonable for a mid-tier cloud platform."
"I would rate DigitalOcean's pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

Which solution do you prefer: Alibaba Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
Thanks for sharing these insights! I completely agree that Microsoft Azure provides IT administrators with strong centralized management, robust security controls through RBAC, and tools for cost o...
What needs improvement with DigitalOcean?
There are disadvantages, such as machines getting stuck or disconnected, requiring restarts. Sometimes we lose connection and need to check with the IT service provider from the DigitalOcean servic...
What is your primary use case for DigitalOcean?
We use DigitalOcean mostly for RDS services and cloud-related systems where we want to deploy codes and run them using nginx or other services where it is cheaper to use, and we use it to extract d...
What advice do you have for others considering DigitalOcean?
I am a lead developer, currently working in that role. We are a customer of DigitalOcean. They can reach me via email to confirm anything regarding my review. I am willing to be a reference for Dig...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Digital Ocean
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
jQuery Foundation, Pertino, TaskRabbit, Compose, InfluxDB, The Able Few
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. DigitalOcean and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.