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Alibaba Cloud vs VMware Cloud Foundation 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)
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Cloud Foundation
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Cloud Foundation2.1%
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
Other92.7%
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.
Narasimha Reddy Illuri - PeerSpot reviewer
VMware Administrator at Infosys
There is progress in performance and stability, but further advancements are needed for end-user satisfaction
VMware Cloud Foundation's best features include its advanced capabilities, security purposes, and performance levels. The solution offers efficient licensing options. Previously, vSphere essential was available, but now it has moved to VMware Cloud Foundation 8.0. It includes advanced features such as lifecycle manager, patching level, and cluster level patching options. The solution now offers auto-deployment of VMs. Previously, I had to use the content library, right-click, and create VMs manually. With VMware Cloud Foundation, auto-deployment is possible by simply right-clicking and assigning a specific DHCP IP, enabling physical to vCenter level communication for automatic VM deployment. The workload portability feature in VMware Cloud Foundation provides good workload balance. For instance, in a cluster level with four to five ESXi hosts, each host has minimum resources allocated for CPU and memory, resulting in significantly reduced utilization at the VMware Cloud Foundation level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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"
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"We use the solution to run VMs."
"The most valuable features in VMware Cloud Foundation are life cycle management and ease of use."
"The stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is very high."
"The solution is very stable."
"We are able to use the product to create virtual machines, automate everything, and give customers their own self-service portal so they can edit their services to do whatever they want, which is a really awesome and flexible feature."
"They have in release 4.0 features from vSphere and Cloud Suite. It's a complete data center."
"It is a scalable platform."
"The initial setup is straightforward and easy."
"VMware Cloud Foundation can be used to make private clouds faster than the traditional way and can also be used for continuity."
 

Cons

"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 majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"If you want more accuracy, stability, and 24/7 customer support, primarily relying on the SDKs and APIs, you should think twice."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"I would not recommend the solution to others."
"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."
"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"They need to offer more support for Mac."
"In the early adoption of VMware Cloud Foundation, we have seen minor problems. For example, in our Federation, I see the single pane of glass where we need to manage everything, which is good, however, internally, we have a Kafka database that is distributed by the database used by the SDDC manager and during the distribution and synchronization, there is some issue and we need to stop the process."
"The deployment is clumsy and complex. There are too many things that need to be done in order to deploy."
"We would like the ability to write to both sites at the same time, in a synchronous fashion."
"The use of cloud and other integrations need to be improved and made easier."
"The solution could improve by being more secure."
"The solution's log management could be improved because the logs don't provide enough information."
"VMware Cloud Foundation could be more flexible in terms of supporting other integration and components."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"The product is not that expensive."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"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."
"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 price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"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."
"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive."
"I give the price a three out of ten."
"The licensing is expensive compared with Hyper V and Unitech's platform."
"If our customer has the option to buy a server for $4,000 or $5,000, but VMware asks for two-person licensing $7,000 to $8,000, which is more than the hardware price. So sometimes, the customer cannot pay for it because it's too expensive."
"It is quite expensive."
"The pricing can be more competitive."
"There is an annual license required to use the solution."
"The tool's price is slightly on the higher side, but I guess you think there is no one-to-one comparison with other tools. The licensing part has become easier, while earlier, it was quite complex."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?
The price for VMware Cloud Foundation is not cheap, as the market is competitive with AWS cloud. When comparing prices of both clouds, AWS is cheaper because they offer a free section for practice....
What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?
In VMware Cloud Foundation, areas that have room for improvement include the experience between VMware Cloud Foundation and the cloud. I prefer working with the cloud due to my study with the archi...
What is your primary use case for VMware Cloud Foundation?
Regarding my experience with application migration between on-premises and public clouds using VMware Cloud Foundation, I have used it for storage deployment.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
ricoh, dell technologies, sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.