Alibaba Cloud
vs
Vast.ai
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
- Budget cards to Blackwell, including the RTX PRO 6000 and B200
- On-demand, interruptible and reserved rentals
- SOC 2 Type II certified, with vetted datacenter hosts in Secure Cloud
- Host reliability ratings and GPU performance benchmarks
- REST API, CLI, Python SDK and coding agent plugins
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Alibaba Cloud | Vast.ai | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.62 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c2m1.large) | -- Not listed | |
| Medium VM | $60.34 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (ecs.e-c1m2.xlarge) | -- Not listed | |
| Large VM | $188.64 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (ecs.c8a.2xlarge) | -- Not listed | |
| Block storage | $7.60 /mo 100 GB (ESSD PL0) | -- Not listed | |
| Object storage | $27.70 /mo 1 TB | -- Not listed | |
| 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 | -- Not listed |
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 Vast.ai offers 61. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Alibaba Cloud | Vast.ai | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
V100
14 configs · 35 configs
|
$2.70 /GPU/hr On-demand | $0.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | 97% cheaper on Vast.ai |
|
T4
12 configs · 6 configs
|
$1.12 /GPU/hr On-demand | $0.15 /GPU/hr On-demand | 87% cheaper on Vast.ai |
|
P100
12 configs · 6 configs
|
$1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | $0.10 /GPU/hr On-demand | 94% cheaper on Vast.ai |
|
A10
26 configs
|
$0.71 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | Alibaba Cloud only |
|
H100
47 configs
|
-- | $0.67 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
|
B200
8 configs
|
-- | $5.94 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
105 configs
|
-- | $0.34 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
|
H200
37 configs
|
-- | $0.45 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
|
RTX 5090
179 configs
|
-- | $0.27 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
|
A100
107 configs
|
-- | $0.23 /GPU/hr Spot | Vast.ai only |
Alibaba Cloud bills on-demand and reserved (12 months); Vast.ai bills on-demand, spot and reserved (1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 or 48 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 | Vast.ai |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II, platform only |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | -- |
| HIPAA | Yes | Secure Cloud tier only |
| 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 | Vast.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | China | USA |
| Locations | 31 | 10 |
| Example customers | Taobao, Henkel, Hang Seng Bank, Tiger Brokers | IBM, Brave, Speechify, Cognition, Bosch |
| Website | www.alibabacloud.com | vast.ai |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Alibaba Cloud and Vast.ai against other cloud providers.
Our data for Alibaba Cloud was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for Vast.ai on Oct. 2, 2026.