Alibaba Cloud
vs
Nebius
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
- Nvidia GPUs from L40S up to GB300 NVL72 racks
- Preemptible GPU instances at a lower hourly rate
- Managed Kubernetes and Slurm clusters at no extra charge
- Free outbound traffic from virtual machines
- Per-token inference API for open-weight models
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Alibaba Cloud | Nebius | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.62 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c2m1.large) | $35.71 /mo 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (cpu-d3) | 84% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Medium VM | $60.34 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge) | $71.42 /mo 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (cpu-d3) | 16% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Large VM | $188.64 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c8a.2xlarge) | $142.85 /mo 8 vCPU, 32 GB RAM (cpu-d3) | 24% cheaper on Nebius |
| Block storage | $7.60 /mo 100 GB (ESSD PL0) | $7.10 /mo 100 GB (Network SSD) | 7% cheaper on Nebius |
| Object storage | $27.70 /mo 1 TB | $19.42 /mo 1 TB (Standard) | 30% cheaper on Nebius |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $104.35 /mo 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (2vcpu-8gb) | |
| Load balancer | $19.40 /mo Network Load Balancer | -- Not listed | |
| Serverless | $20.63 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration (0.15 vCPU) | -- Not listed | |
| Egress allowance | 200 GB / mo | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | $74.00 /TB $0.074 / GB | Free from VMs, billed from Object Storage |
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 Nebius offers 8. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Alibaba Cloud | Nebius | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
$1.51 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
|
$0.62 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
|
$0.71 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
|
$0.87 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
|
-- | $4.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | Nebius only |
|
|
-- | $9.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | Nebius only |
|
|
-- | $8.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | Nebius only |
|
|
-- | $1.80 /GPU/hr On-demand | Nebius only |
|
|
-- | $5.40 /GPU/hr On-demand | Nebius only |
|
|
-- | -- On request | Nebius only |
Alibaba Cloud bills on-demand and reserved (12 months); Nebius bills on-demand and spot. 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 | Nebius |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | Level 1 | -- |
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 | Nebius |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | China | Netherlands |
| Locations | 31 | 10 |
| Example customers | Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers | Revolut, Sword Health, Brave, Voxel51, Recraft |
| Website | www.alibabacloud.com | nebius.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Alibaba Cloud and Nebius against other cloud providers.
Our data for Alibaba Cloud was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for Nebius on Oct. 1, 2026.