Alibaba Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS comparison

Alibaba and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Alibaba is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.4, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Alibaba holds a 13.0% mindshare in ISI, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Alibaba users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

Alibaba Cloud

Read 19 Alibaba Cloud reviews

6,093 Views
6,093 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Read 41 SAP S4HANA on AWS reviews

2,060 Views
2,039 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Alibaba Cloud

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

SAP S4HANA on AWS and Alibaba Cloud compete in cloud computing, focusing on ERP and infrastructure services respectively. SAP S4HANA on AWS seems to have the technological upper hand with advanced features and robust database management, but it faces criticism for high costs, while Alibaba Cloud offers a more economical solution with flexibility for SMEs.

Features: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers high-performance capabilities with the HANA database, enabling efficient real-time processing and integration. Its AWS integration minimizes the need for extensive on-premises setups, enhancing scalability. Alibaba Cloud provides economical solutions with flexible tools similar to AWS, offering a user-friendly interface and appealing pricing for SMEs, especially in Asia.

Room for Improvement: SAP S4HANA on AWS could benefit from reduced complexity and a better user interface, alongside more comprehensive documentation and expanded cloud provider support. Alibaba Cloud needs to address latency issues outside China, improve technical support, and enhance its SDK services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers reliable integration across various cloud environments, supported by AWS's robust infrastructure support, although costly. User satisfaction with support varies. Alibaba Cloud is noted for its simplicity in deployment within public cloud infrastructures but requires improvements in technical support and community resources.

Pricing and ROI: SAP S4HANA on AWS is a high-cost solution justified by its advanced features and long-term cloud hosting savings. Pricing varies with licensing models. Alibaba Cloud, with its competitive pricing, is attractive to businesses in Asia, promising cost savings and a stable ROI compared to major competitors.

To learn more, read our detailed Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,295 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

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 Alibaba Cloud is 13.0%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S4HANA on AWS is 3.5%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

AtifNajam

Group CIO at Ghulam Faruque Group

Strong integration in manufacturing and enhances flexibility with useful workflow management

Installation is very straightforward, however, implementation takes years or months based on the project's size. In manufacturing, the requirement might go from ten to 12 people. If I'm a sales-oriented company, such as an FMCG or something else, then I might need around seven or eight people at the very minimum. It is not an easy task to migrate. If I'm moving from a different ERP to S/4HANA, I need a proper project that probably spans several months, with significant engagement from both the business side and the technical side. I need an opportunity partner on it. Processing to SCE S/4HANA takes a bit of effort.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"It is easy to set up."

"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."

"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."

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

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

"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."

More Alibaba Cloud pros

"The Fiori interface is the most valuable feature. It's one of the highlights that they offer. The in-memory of S4 is very fast."

"It is indeed a stable solution, but it depends on how you architecture the component in AWS. If the component has the right architecture and is properly provisioned and placed, then it will be a stable platform."

"Provides good performance and regular release of new features."

"SAP S4HANA on AWS has high performance. All the data is in one place and it's real-time. When you make an entry you don't have to wait a couple of minutes, hours, or overnight as something the batch process takes time. It is instantaneous and is available to everybody."

"I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten because it covers all the fields, has a big maturity, and has something other solutions are missing, which is speed."

"We have approximately 1,000 people using the solution in my organization. The solution is scalable."

"The HANA database is a valuable feature"

"It's easy to use and user-friendly."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pros

Cons

"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."

"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’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."

"It is not robust."

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

"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."

"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."

More Alibaba Cloud cons

"The product's implementation phase can be very complex for customers."

"Sometimes, the tool has bugs."

"The solution needs a warehouse management feature. Right now, there's a built-in WM, but they don't have an EWM extended warehouse management built-in, in S/4HANA. It's a separate product. So if they can add that, that would be great."

"I would like scalability to be improved in the future for faster performance."

"Businesses are particularly interested in process automation, mobile, and web applications. These are the areas that SAP S4HANA is and should be looking to improve on, especially in terms of streamlining processes and automating certain steps."

"More availability zones will help customers choose AWS. I would like to see features that provide easier onboarding for ERP solutions like SAP. SAP has already partnered with S/4HANA on AWS for hosting its public cloud as well. More educational videos for customers to choose this cloud path would be great to have. That is, providing more documentation and marketing material would be better."

"The documentation isn't clear enough."

"I would like for them to have more integration with virtualization platforms."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."

"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."

"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 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"

"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."

"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."

More Alibaba Cloud pricing and cost advice

"We pay an annual subscription fee for the solution, which is slightly expensive."

"The vendors have different pricing, ways of serving, security, and providing the service. You go and compare the offerings. Some might be better with smaller companies. For example, Microsoft Azure can handle small and medium-sized companies best but still can cover some large companies. Whereas Amazon AWS and IBM are going to cover sized companies. There's no clear advantage. Probably Amazon AWS may have been the first to be certified by SAP as a cloud-hosting partner. Then Microsoft Azure and IBM were certified at the same time. You have to partner up and be certified by the software."

"It's expensive. It would be good if AWS and Azure could reduce the computing cost for people who move to the public cloud."

"There are additional modules-wise, it's needed for modules, and also for any new functions."

"The licensing of the product is reasonable but the cost of the hardware is exorbitant."

"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest price, I rate the solution's pricing an eight."

"I rate the price of SAP S4HANA on AWS an eight out of ten."

"Compared to its competitors, SAP S4HANA on AWS is a costly solution."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

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.

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

What do you like most about SAP S4HANA on AWS?

With extensive data and a sizable client base, this ensures seamless operations, responsiveness, and overall reliability, addressing our enterprise-scale needs effectively.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S4HANA on AWS?

The initial setup required a higher investment, but the return on investment has justified the cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA on AWS?

Currently, we have some integration areas like Concur and Ariba that could be improved. Having these integrations as a single source rather than working in silos would be beneficial for customers.

See all answers

Comparisons

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 Network Cloud Service vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 0% of the time

More Alibaba Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 65% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon AWS vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 8% of the time

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 7% of the time

More SAP S4HANA on AWS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud

August 2025

Download Alibaba Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP S4HANA on AWS

July 2025

Download SAP S4HANA on AWS product report

Also Known As

No data available

SAP S/4HANA on AWS

Overview

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

SAP customers of all sizes can fully realize all the benefits of the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud. With SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud you can:

Achieve faster time to value with the AWS on-demand infrastructure
Rapidly provision infrastructure for SAP S/4HANA with no upfront cost or long-term commitment
Pay for only what you need Don't spend upfront costs purchasing hardware for what you can't forecast
Test and evaluate SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition with a free trial offering from SAP on AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

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

Brigade Group, DoHome, Royal FloraHolland

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

July 2025

Free Report: Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS report.

See our list of best Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) vendors.

We monitor all Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.