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Alibaba Cloud vs Google Compute Engine comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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)
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Compute Engine
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
Google Compute Engine1.3%
Other93.5%
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.
AK
Cloud Engineer at Global Payments Inc.
SSH access has simplified my backend deployments but setup and architecture still need improvement
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a different team, and I have been using them as it is a normal case, similar to a normal Linux server. I have noticed a positive impact since the deployment of Google Compute Engine; it is simpler. However, for those who are not very much familiar with Google Cloud, it can, at times, be difficult. Also, the freebies are not much from Google's side, referring to the credits, so that users can become more familiar since there is a limited amount or it is case-dependent. Without trying Google Compute Engine totally, I cannot tell you much about it. From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS. The complexity increases, especially if we want to access the things over the API; we need to explicitly set up things and can only access the CLI environment of GCP, which is sometimes a hectic task.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The installation is easy."
"Feature-wise, it provides many features, and ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."
"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."
"When comparing solutions such as GCP, which is the same as Alibaba Cloud, and others such as Amazon AWS and Azure, Alibaba Cloud is the preferred solution in China."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"It's the most engineer-friendly product compared to Amazon AWS or Azure."
"The overall product rating is nine out of ten."
"The support for ephemeral instances has been particularly valuable for me. It allows me to significantly reduce costs for temporary virtual machines by automatically destroying them once they are no longer needed, which can result in cost savings of up to 90 percent. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"I could not have found a better product to perform interactive data analysis and begin my career as a Data Engineer."
"I recommend the tool to others since it has high availability features, scalability, and stability."
"One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups."
"From a feature perspective, I find API integration, automation capabilities, and features like preemptive and Spot instances valuable. Migration tools have also been useful."
"Google Compute is highly scalable."
 

Cons

"I wouldn't recommend Alibaba. I think other companies should just use Azure instead, as it's a much simpler solution."
"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"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 majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"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."
"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS."
"Google Compute Engine needs to have multi-region support. It would also be nice to have a tracking mechanism."
"The GCE only has virtual machines with processors and video cards of the new generation in the North American region, the GCE has expanded in new areas, like Latin America, but it does not carry powerful hardware."
"Google has a lack of focus on their products."
"I would like to improve the solution’s UI while deploying a container. It is sometimes hard to figure out the container’s details and format that you want to deploy. The tool does not give you a guide to find out the error and why the container is not starting up which could be because you have configured it wrong. This is always a hit on the setup."
"The high availability features in Google are only available in Google Compute Engine in different regions. If I have another server outside Google, the high availability features in Google cannot synchronize with such a server."
"There have been a few (rare) instances where I've encountered a stability issue during the beta pre-production stage of the product."
"At this point there is no ROI unless the business model fundamentally changes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"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 cost is better than similar solutions."
"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"
"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."
"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."
"Google Compute Engine is not the least expensive solution. Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft One, are offering a less expensive solution. The price is based on usage. Whenever we use it, we have to pay for only usage. It is a pay-as-you-go model."
"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."
"The tool is reasonably priced, considering its scalability features. If we want to extend the server's capacity, we can do it, and I think it's reasonable."
"In terms of improvement, one is definitely the licensing piece. So there is a feature, the BYOL (Bring Your Own License) licensing piece, to bring your own license. It is not that straightforward. It requires some support from Google to get it sorted, access those licenses, and configure those licenses."
"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Regarding the pricing and licensing of Google Compute Engine, when I refer to licensing, it implies the price or a credit-based system. While doing my personal projects, I prefer AWS over GCP and u...
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a d...
What is your primary use case for Google Compute Engine?
My usual use cases for Google Compute Engine involve deploying the backends and APIs only.
 

Also Known As

No data available
GCE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.