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Alibaba Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on 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)
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP S4HANA on AWS
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
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 Alibaba Cloud is 12.0%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S4HANA on AWS is 3.0%, down from 3.3% 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 (%)
Alibaba Cloud12.0%
SAP S4HANA on AWS3.0%
Other85.0%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AtifNajam - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 product for storage and as a VPN."
"Feature-wise, it provides many features. ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."
"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"
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"It is easy to set up."
"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."
"Provides good performance and regular release of new features."
"The HANA database is a valuable feature"
"The tool covers many modules, like production, planning, management, and finance. It is a very scalable tool that can be beneficial for any company."
"This solution has one of the most modern databases and it is very stable."
"There are two main features that we find very valuable. One is the interface and the new user experience. That's really, really helpful for the end-user. The second is the HANA database itself because it speeds up the process. In other solutions, like Oracle, there is a lot of redundancy that slows things down."
"We have found the retail business features to be the most valuable."
"The product efficiently manages the data center without manual intervention."
 

Cons

"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"The user experience must be improved."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"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."
"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 support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
"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."
"The manufacturing application system, it's not as user-friendly in S4HANA."
"The product can be very complex."
"SAP S4HANA on AWS could improve by having more data centers because there are limited data centers in the region I am in. Amazon AWS has announced a few more data centers to be added, but they're still not 100 percent operational for SAP solutions."
"The platform's front-end user interface needs improvement compared to other applications."
"This solution is very resource-intensive, including high memory and CPU utilization."
"There are times when the solution can become slower. The stability could improve."
"We had some storage and legacy migrations problems with SAP S4HANA on AWS."
"Sometimes, the tool has bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is not that expensive."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"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'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."
"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 cost is better than similar solutions."
"There are additional modules-wise, it's needed for modules, and also for any new functions."
"I would rate the pricing as a two and a half out of five."
"Licensing fees are on an annual basis."
"We pay a monthly fee for the use of SAP S4HANA on AWS for approximately five years. That's the time of the contract."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"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."
"The pricing is a little bit high."
"SAP S4HANA on AWS has reasonable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
 

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,...
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.
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.
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP S/4HANA on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Brigade Group, DoHome, Royal FloraHolland
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.