Alibaba Cloud
vs
Scaleway
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
- All data centers in the EU
- Outbound traffic included on Instances
- GPUs from L4 up to B300, plus hosted AI models
- Managed Kubernetes, databases, serverless and Kafka
- Bare metal and Apple silicon servers
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Alibaba Cloud | Scaleway | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.62 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c2m1.large) | $11.61 /mo 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM (PLAY2-PICO) | 52% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Medium VM | $60.34 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge) | $44.81 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (PLAY2-MICRO) | 26% cheaper on Scaleway |
| Large VM | $188.64 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c8a.2xlarge) | $190.43 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (COMPUTE3-X8C-16G) | Within 5% |
| Block storage | $7.60 /mo 100 GB (ESSD PL0) | $10.57 /mo 100 GB SSD (Low Latency 5K) | 28% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Object storage | $27.70 /mo 1 TB | $19.87 /mo 1 TB stored, 250 GB egress (Standard Multi-AZ) | 28% cheaper on Scaleway |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $40.67 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (DB-PLAY2-NANO) | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $39.05 /mo 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM (RED1-MICRO, 1 node) | |
| Load balancer | $19.40 /mo Network Load Balancer | $18.71 /mo LB-S (200 Mbps, 1 node) · Node only. A public IPv4 adds €3.60 / mo. | Within 5% |
| Serverless | $20.63 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration (0.15 vCPU) | $40.25 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | 49% cheaper on Alibaba Cloud |
| Egress allowance | 200 GB / mo | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | $74.00 /TB $0.074 / GB | Free and unlimited Bandwidth caps based on instance size |
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 Scaleway offers 5. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Alibaba Cloud | Scaleway | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
P100
12 configs · 1 config
|
$1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.38 /GPU/hr On-demand | 11% cheaper on Scaleway |
|
V100
14 configs
|
$1.51 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
T4
12 configs
|
$0.62 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
A10
26 configs
|
$0.71 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
H100
5 configs
|
-- | $3.58 /GPU/hr On-demand | Scaleway only |
|
B300
1 config
|
-- | $8.47 /GPU/hr On-demand · sold out | Scaleway only |
|
L40S
4 configs
|
-- | $1.66 /GPU/hr On-demand · sold out | Scaleway only |
|
L4
4 configs
|
-- | $0.89 /GPU/hr On-demand | Scaleway only |
Alibaba Cloud bills on-demand and reserved (12 months); Scaleway 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 | Scaleway |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | -- |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | 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 | Scaleway |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 | 1999 |
| Headquarters | China | France |
| Locations | 31 | 10 |
| Example customers | Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers | Cloud-IAM, Whispeak, Golem.ai |
| Website | www.alibabacloud.com | scaleway.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Alibaba Cloud and Scaleway against other cloud providers.
Our data for Alibaba Cloud was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for Scaleway on Oct. 1, 2026.