Alibaba Cloud vs AWS

In this page:

What's good
Price comparison
What services do they offer
Company details
Alternatives to consider

What's good about...

Alibaba Cloud

Strong presence in Asia and over 3,000 points of presence (POPs) around the world
Extensive range of managed services and server configurations
Offers a solid range of GPU servers

Amazon Web Services

Extensive range of managed services, from serverless to databases to queues to video streaming
Generous free tier and savings plan available to lock-in discounts
30+ datacenter locations around the world

Price comparison

How do Alibaba Cloud's prices compare against Amazon Web Services?

Example configuration	Alibaba Cloud	Amazon Web Services
VM Small	$15.21 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.xn4.small)	$7.49 / mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (t3.micro)
VM Medium	$89.79 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.c7.xlarge)	$119.80 / mo 4 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (t3.xlarge)
VM Large	$170.49 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c7.2xlarge)	$248.20 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (c5.2xlarge)
Block Storage	$11.20 / mo 100 GB (Enhanced SSD PL0)	$8.00 / mo 100 GB
Object Storage	$43.84 / mo 1 TB, 250 GB reads, 100 GB writes	$24.63 / mo 1 TB
Load Balancer	$16.56 / mo Small I (slb.s1.small)	$22.57 / mo Network Load Balancer
Managed PostgreSQL	$114.92 / mo 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (general-purpose)	$57.59 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 50 GB storage (db.t3.medium)
Managed Redis®*	$43.09 / mo 1 GB Performance-enhanced (HA)	$24.82 / mo 1 vCPU, 1.55 GiB RAM (cache.t2.small)
Serverless 25M Executions	--	$36.26 / mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration
Free egress allowance	10 GB / mo	100 GB / mo
1 TB of egress beyond allowance	$74.00 $0.074 / GB	$90.00 $0.09 / GB (North America)

Alibaba Cloud offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
ecs.gn6i-c4g1.xlarge	1x T4	16GB	4	15GB	$1.18	Source
ecs.gn7i-c8g1.2xlarge	1x A10	24GB	8	30GB	$2.86	Source
ecs.gn6e-c12g1.3xlarge	1x V100	32GB	12	92GB	$3.51	Source

AWS offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
g5g.xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	4	16GB	$0.42	Source
g4dn.xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	4	16GB	$0.53	Launch
g5g.2xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	8	16GB	$0.56	Source
g3s.xlarge	1x M60	8GB	4	30GB	$0.75	Source
g4dn.2xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	8	32GB	$0.75	Source
g5g.4xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	16	16GB	$0.83	Source
p2.xlarge	1x K80	12GB	4	61GB	$0.90	Source
g5.xlarge	1x A10G	24GB	4	16GB	$1.01	Source
g3.4xlarge	1x M60	8GB	16	122GB	$1.14	Source
g4dn.4xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	16	64GB	$1.20	Source
g5.2xlarge	1x A10G	24GB	8	32GB	$1.21	Source
g5g.8xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	32	16GB	$1.37	Source
g5.4xlarge	1x A10G	24GB	16	64GB	$1.63	Launch
g4dn.8xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	32	128GB	$2.18	Source
g3.8xlarge	2x M60	16GB	32	244GB	$2.28	Source
g5.8xlarge	1x A10G	24GB	32	128GB	$2.45	Source
g5g.16xlarge	2x T4G	32GB	64	32GB	$2.74	Source
p3.2xlarge	1x V100	16GB	8	61GB	$3.06	Launch
g4dn.12xlarge	4x T4G	64GB	48	192GB	$3.92	Launch
g5.12xlarge	4x A10G	96GB	48	192GB	$4.10	Source
g4dn.16xlarge	1x T4G	16GB	64	256GB	$4.35	Source
g3.16xlarge	4x M60	32GB	64	488GB	$4.56	Source
g5.12xlarge	4x A10G	384GB	48	192GB	$5.68	Launch
p2.8xlarge	8x K80	96GB	32	488GB	$7.20	Source
g4dn.metal	8x T4G	128GB	96	384GB	$7.83	Launch
g5.24xlarge	4x A10G	96GB	96	384GB	$8.14	Source
p3.8xlarge	4x V100	64GB	32	244GB	$12.24	Launch
p2.16xlarge	16x K80	192GB	64	732GB	$14.40	Source
g5.48xlarge	8x A10G	192GB	192	768GB	$16.29	Launch
p3.16xlarge	8x V100	128GB	64	488GB	$24.48	Launch
p4d.24xlarge	8x A100	320GB	96	1152GB	$32.77	Launch
p5.48xlarge	8x H100	640GB	192	2048GB	$98.32	Source

Note: Our pricing examples are based on several assumptions. Your actual costs may differ. Always check the cloud provider's website for the most up-to-date pricing.

Which services do they offer?

Here are some managed services that Alibaba Cloud and Amazon Web Services offer:

Service	Alibaba Cloud	Amazon Web Services
Block Storage
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Container Registry
GPU-powered Servers
Load Balancer
Managed Containers
Managed Kubernetes
Managed MySQL
Managed PostgreSQL
Managed Redis®*
Object Storage
Serverless Cron Jobs
Serverless Functions
Static Sites
Virtual Private Server (VPS)	--

Company details

	Alibaba Cloud	Amazon Web Services
Website	www.alibabacloud.com	aws.amazon.com
Headquarters	Singapore 🇸🇬	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2009	2006
Data Center Locations	30	31
Example Customers	Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers	Vanguard, Disney, Samsung, Zocdoc, GoPro

	Alibaba Cloud
Website	www.alibabacloud.com
Headquarters	Singapore 🇸🇬
Founded	2009
Data Center Locations	30
Example Customers	Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers

	Amazon Web Services
Website	aws.amazon.com
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2006
Data Center Locations	31
Example Customers	Vanguard, Disney, Samsung, Zocdoc, GoPro