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Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon AWS is 15.1%, up from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 8.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure8.6%
Amazon AWS15.1%
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
Other71.1%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Min HtetOo - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Marketing Officer at Soft Intelligence
The solution is useful for application development, but the user interface and user experience must be improved
The product must be made easier to use. The design is a bit tricky. When we log in to the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace and browse products, they look very small. The user experience must be improved. Alibaba Cloud must increase its partner network and brand awareness in our country. It will give our customers more opportunities to scale and save in the long run.
Asif  Meem - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Machine Learning Engineer at sportsbet
Managed cloud services have helped accelerate experiments with flexible configuration options
Sometimes the costs associated with spinning up a service, especially managed services, have implications. For example, if I create a Glue job, that will create S3 buckets and other resources that have cost implications, but once I clean up a Glue job, it does not delete the other accessory resources. Sometimes, I have to go hunting for what resources Amazon AWS might have provisioned and how it is costing behind the scenes. It can be complex depending on your level of expertise. It is not as easy to get started, especially when it comes to secure practices. Amazon AWS is more hands-on than other platforms.
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
Versatile integrations and reliable customer satisfaction elevate cloud service experience
For Microsoft Azure improvement, they need to enhance their support system. The first level of support should be improved in terms of quality and response time. They need more technical support at the first level, as there are currently only one or two technical people among five to ten staff members at this level. They should ensure that the first level support is more technical because we normally provide services to technical users ourselves. When an issue arises, it usually escalates to the second or third level. When facing first level support, they may have limited knowledge and only collect screenshots to forward to their seniors. They should ensure that the first level support is aligned with L2 and L3 to better assist us, especially since we mention in the ticket that our issues are related to specific problems and require that sort of support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable; it's quite inexpensive and the solution is very secure."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"It is easy to set up."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"Alibaba also offers a lot of flexibility compared to Google Cloud, where you can only use Google's Tools."
"Otherwise, the cost of Alibaba Cloud is reasonable, and service-wise, it's also good because it has many available services worth trying."
"Alibaba Cloud allows for easy setup of mirror sites and backup servers, ensuring data redundancy and high availability."
"Elasticity has always been AWS's mandate. The flexibility of their platform from a systems perspective lives up to its claims."
"The bundle of services provided by them such as CloudFront, CloudWatch, EC2, Simple Storage service etc undoubtedly cover all the aspects needed by the developers and system administrators to match infrastructure and scalability issues for the growing demands."
"The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are the EC2 instance for web applications with CDN Networks."
"I value the automation and the stability of this product."
"It's very user-friendly."
"The ease of use is the biggest benefit."
"It's quite stable and scalable, and the price is good as well."
"I like that it helps us do everything really fast, and its advanced services."
"The product is highly stable."
"The most valuable feature of Azure is the flexibility to pick and choose what you need, on the spot, and then be able to manage it yourself."
"The most important thing is we don't have to maintain any physical infrastructure."
"Azure is stable."
"Microsoft Azure is absolutely great."
"Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly."
"The solution reduces work for our IT teams, they don't have to keep things up to date, and we can concentrate on our mission, with help from Microsoft to migrate applications to the latest release and support efforts, which saves us a lot of time."
"The solution has enabled us to provide advanced indicators and analytics to the client on their data."
 

Cons

"The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"Regarding security issues, Alibaba Cloud is more complex and better suited for developers and R&D teams. On the other hand, Google Cloud is more convenient for new users."
"The user experience must be improved."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
"If you are familiar with other cloud infrastructures, you can see that it is in need of some enhancements."
"They could lower the cost. The setup could also be easier."
"Some of the services are hard to use so I think a more user-friendly interface would be helpful."
"In future releases, I would like to see more automation."
"The console's UI could be a little better, a fluid User Experience is missing."
"When I try to enter the multi-cloud, they provide very poor support. Support is a concern with Amazon."
"There are plenty of areas for improvement. For example, the ease of tagging could be improved. The tool could integrate AI tools to identify better and manage costs. Calculating the cost of some services could be more straightforward."
"Its price should be lower. The price for in-house usage should be different from production usage."
"Pricing is one area where Azure has room for improvement. There should be some due consideration."
"It's possible that the performance could be improved, but it's not a big issue."
"Azure could be made more user-friendly. For example, the configuration wizard should be more intuitive for the users."
"In a month, there is a plan to increase pricing, which is something we are not looking forward to."
"I would like to see more databases on the cloud, what they call today Big Data should be there."
"There is room for improvement in Microsoft Azure."
"There are a number of services offered by AWS that are not yet available on Azure."
"I think better accelerators and better tools that can be used to migrate and leverage the existing models and data schemas are needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud. Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."
"The cost of Alibaba Cloud is lower than that of AWS, but I feel that its price is on the higher end of the spectrum. Alibaba Cloud charges its users a price in dollars"
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"For the initial 12 months, the solution is reasonably priced. On enterprise license contracts where you negotiate, have been reasonable too."
"With Amazon AWS, you pay as you go."
"Pricing is good. It's average."
"In comparison to Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, the database offered by Amazon AWS is relatively expensive. However, the database also offers rich features."
"The pricing is fair."
"The price of the Virtual Desktop service from Amazon AWS could improve, it is more expensive than competitors. The pricing model we are using is pay-as-you-go. You only pay for what you use."
"It is very expensive, you have to be very cautious."
"Amazon AWS is on the cheaper side, as their pricing is more competitive. There are no additional costs besides the license. However, Azure sells Microsoft licenses, so they have an advantage."
"Microsoft Azure overall is an expensive solution."
"The license cost could be reduced."
"It's not on a per-user basis; it's on a per subscription basis. It is dependent on how much you use."
"Some services are okay, while others are expensive. Different features within the same service, like Defender, have separate charges. This, combined with the skill shortage in FinOps strategy and management, makes it difficult to control costs."
"With adequate knowledge, I think you can come up with a good model where the pricing won't be a constraint."
"The licensing price is fine."
"Make use of Azure pricing calculator and you will find out that Azure Is still more reasonable that the competition and do your research, when unclear speak with your MS support."
"Price could always be cheaper. Its licensing and usage aren't always cheap. We pay monthly."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Aug 14, 2013
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise119
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alibaba Cloud?
On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten.
What needs improvement with Alibaba Cloud?
Alibaba Cloud needs to improve emails. Its pricing can also be lower. Regarding security issues, Alibaba Cloud is mor...
What is your primary use case for Alibaba Cloud?
I was using Alibaba Cloud for the deployment of one of the products that my previous company was developing for a cli...
How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderfu...
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expand...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the fle...
Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to ...
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world....
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Amazon Web Services, AWS
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: May 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.