Alibaba Cloud
vs
Google Cloud
Both are hyperscalers with matching service catalogs. Alibaba Cloud charges less for medium VMs and egress and runs regions in mainland China, while Google Cloud adds H100 and B200 GPUs, TPUs and BigQuery.
What's good about each
- 30+ regions, most in mainland China and Asia-Pacific
- 3,200+ CDN nodes in 70+ countries
- Qwen models served through Model Studio
- PolarDB, its own MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible database
- 40+ regions across 26 countries
- BigQuery, GKE and Gemini models on Vertex AI
- TPUs, plus Nvidia T4 up to 8x B200 nodes
- Automatic sustained use discounts on N1 and N2 VMs
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Alibaba Cloud | Google Cloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.62 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c2m1.large) | $6.79 /mo 2 vCPU (shared-core), 1 GB RAM (e2-micro) | 17% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Medium VM | $60.34 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge) | $94.20 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (E2 custom) | 36% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Large VM | $188.64 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c8a.2xlarge) | $220.44 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (n4-highcpu-8) | 14% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Block storage | $7.60 /mo 100 GB (ESSD PL0) | $7.89 /mo 100 GB (Hyperdisk Balanced) | Within 5% |
| Object storage | $27.70 /mo 1 TB | $42.13 /mo 1 TB | 34% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $94.22 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD (Cloud SQL Enterprise) | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $22.90 /mo 1.4 GB (Memorystore for Valkey, shared-core-nano) | |
| Load balancer | $19.40 /mo Network Load Balancer | $29.16 /mo Passthrough Network Load Balancer | 33% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Serverless | $20.63 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration (0.15 vCPU) | $44.66 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration (Cloud Run functions, 0.333 vCPU) | 54% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Egress allowance | 200 GB / mo | 1 GB / mo (Compute Engine), 100 GB / mo (Cloud Storage) | |
| Egress | $74.00 /TB $0.074 / GB | $120.00 /TB $0.12 / GB (Premium network) | 38% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
Alibaba Cloud offers 4 GPU models, while Google Cloud offers 10. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Alibaba Cloud | Google Cloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
V100
14 configs · 36 configs
|
$2.70 /GPU/hr On-demand | $2.53 /GPU/hr On-demand | 6% cheaper on Google Cloud |
|
T4
12 configs · 48 configs
|
$1.12 /GPU/hr On-demand | $0.42 /GPU/hr On-demand | 62% cheaper on Google Cloud |
|
P100
12 configs · 36 configs
|
$1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.51 /GPU/hr On-demand | Within 5% |
|
A10
26 configs
|
$0.71 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
H100
15 configs
|
-- | $4.34 /GPU/hr Spot | Google Cloud only |
|
B200
3 configs
|
-- | $4.18 /GPU/hr Spot | Google Cloud only |
|
H200
3 configs
|
-- | $4.66 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | Google Cloud only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
16 configs
|
-- | $1.98 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | Google Cloud only |
|
A100
36 configs
|
-- | $1.31 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | Google Cloud only |
|
L4
32 configs
|
-- | $0.32 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | Google Cloud only |
Alibaba Cloud bills on-demand and reserved (12 months); Google Cloud bills on-demand, spot and reserved (12 or 36 months). The line under each price names the billing type shown.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Alibaba Cloud | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | Level 1 | Yes |
| FedRAMP | -- | High |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Alibaba Cloud | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 | 2008 |
| Headquarters | China | USA |
| Locations | 31 | 40 |
| Example customers | Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers | Shopify, Wayfair, Etsy, The Home Depot, Unilever, Lloyds Banking Group |
| Website | www.alibabacloud.com | cloud.google.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Alibaba Cloud and Google Cloud against other cloud providers.
Our data for Alibaba Cloud was last updated on Oct. 2, 2026, and for Google Cloud on Oct. 2, 2026.