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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)
10th
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)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 2.2%, 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 (%)
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
VMware Cloud Foundation2.2%
Other92.6%
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

"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"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."
"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable; it's quite inexpensive and the solution is very secure."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"Otherwise, the cost of Alibaba Cloud is reasonable, and service-wise, it's also good because it has many available services worth trying."
"It is easy to set up."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"The initial setup is straightforward and easy."
"VMware Cloud Foundation allows for extensive customization, aligning with our customer requirements."
"I'm able to deploy many platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Azure on VMware."
"Overall, I rate VMware Cloud Foundation a nine out of ten."
"The mission aspect of the solution is the most valuable feature."
"If you want to reduce the operational overhead and manage your entire virtual infrastructure from a single pane of glass, then I would recommend VMware Cloud Foundation."
"The stability is good."
"The stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is very high."
 

Cons

"The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"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."
"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"Customer support has a lot of room for improvement. There's just general documentation, general customer support, and general maturity of the processes are all lacking when compared to Amazon or Google."
"The solution should have more integration."
"An improvement needed is an upgrade to make it more scalable and automated, so that it can be easier to navigate within the cloud and the Kubernetes and vSphere, enabling VMware Cloud Foundation to deliver a more scalable hybrid cloud and manage the lifecycle between the management and Kubernetes section."
"Integrations are slightly difficult, as getting resources to deal with it is not that easy."
"Working on features that could include the capability to migrate workflows from non-VMware environments would be highly beneficial."
"The pricing could be a bit less expensive."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, especially after Broadcom acquired VMware, with a shift from socket-based licensing to core-based licensing."
"They need to offer more support for Mac."
"After the acquisition, prices have been going up."
"VMware Cloud Foundation is complex, and there are always updates regarding security features, accessibility, and the user interface. Making changes isn't simple because there are a lot of tables to update. People in the field may not feel confident about managing it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that expensive."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"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."
"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."
"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 cost is better than similar solutions."
"The licensing is expensive compared with Hyper V and Unitech's platform."
"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is a bit high. However, it comes with a lot of useful features and can handle a lot of operational complexity. Overall the price can be seen as being fair for what it offers."
"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."
"The pricing can be more competitive."
"This solutuion can be expensive for small and medium-sized companies."
"There is an annual license required to use the solution."
"The pricing is moderate. I would rate it six out of ten."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
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

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 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: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.