Alibaba Cloud
vs
Oracle Cloud
Both are hyperscalers with matching service catalogs. Alibaba Cloud runs regions in mainland China and Southeast Asia, while Oracle Cloud charges less for VMs and egress and rents H100 to GB300 GPUs.
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
- 10 TB of free egress each month
- Same compute and storage prices in every region
- Flexible shapes with CPU and memory sized separately
- Oracle Database inside AWS, Azure and Google Cloud
- Always Free tier with Arm VMs and databases
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Alibaba Cloud | Oracle Cloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.62 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c2m1.large) | $3.33 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (VM.Standard.E4.Flex, 12.5% burstable) | 41% cheaper on Oracle Cloud |
| Medium VM | $60.34 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge) | $44.64 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (VM.Standard.E4.Flex) | 26% cheaper on Oracle Cloud |
| Large VM | $188.64 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c8a.2xlarge) | $89.28 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (VM.Standard.E4.Flex) | 53% cheaper on Oracle Cloud |
| Block storage | $7.60 /mo 100 GB (ESSD PL0) | $4.25 /mo 100 GB (Balanced) | 44% cheaper on Oracle Cloud |
| Object storage | $27.70 /mo 1 TB | $26.49 /mo 1 TB | Within 5% |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $119.65 /mo 2 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (PostgreSQL.VM.Standard.E5.Flex) | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $27.94 /mo 2 GB RAM (OCI Cache, Valkey) | |
| Load balancer | $19.40 /mo Network Load Balancer | Free Network Load Balancer | Free on Oracle Cloud |
| Serverless | $20.63 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration (0.15 vCPU) | $31.57 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | 35% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Egress allowance | 200 GB / mo | 10 TB / mo | |
| Egress | $74.00 /TB $0.074 / GB | $8.50 /TB $0.0085 / GB (North America, Europe) | 89% cheaper on Oracle 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 Oracle Cloud offers 15. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Alibaba Cloud | Oracle Cloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
V100
14 configs · 4 configs
|
$2.70 /GPU/hr On-demand | $2.95 /GPU/hr On-demand | 9% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
|
A10
26 configs · 3 configs
|
$1.27 /GPU/hr On-demand | $2.00 /GPU/hr On-demand | 36% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
|
P100
12 configs · 2 configs
|
$1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.27 /GPU/hr On-demand | 18% cheaper on Oracle Cloud |
|
T4
12 configs
|
$0.62 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
H100
1 config
|
-- | $10.00 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
|
B300
1 config
|
-- | $15.00 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
|
B200
1 config
|
-- | $14.00 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
1 config
|
-- | $4.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
|
H200
1 config
|
-- | $10.00 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
|
A100
2 configs
|
-- | $3.05 /GPU/hr On-demand | Oracle Cloud only |
Alibaba Cloud bills on-demand and reserved (12 months); Oracle Cloud bills on-demand. 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 | Oracle Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Yes |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | Level 1 | Yes |
| FedRAMP | -- | High, US Government Cloud |
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 | Oracle Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 | 2016 |
| Headquarters | China | USA |
| Locations | 31 | 45 |
| Example customers | Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers | Bosch, Uber, Marriott, Telefónica Colombia |
| Website | www.alibabacloud.com | www.oracle.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud against other cloud providers.
Our data for Alibaba Cloud was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for Oracle Cloud on Oct. 1, 2026.