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Alibaba Cloud vs Google Compute Engine comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Alibaba Cloud
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
10th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Compute Engine
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
Google Compute Engine1.3%
Other93.5%
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.
AK
Cloud Engineer at Global Payments Inc.
SSH access has simplified my backend deployments but setup and architecture still need improvement
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a different team, and I have been using them as it is a normal case, similar to a normal Linux server. I have noticed a positive impact since the deployment of Google Compute Engine; it is simpler. However, for those who are not very much familiar with Google Cloud, it can, at times, be difficult. Also, the freebies are not much from Google's side, referring to the credits, so that users can become more familiar since there is a limited amount or it is case-dependent. Without trying Google Compute Engine totally, I cannot tell you much about it. From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS. The complexity increases, especially if we want to access the things over the API; we need to explicitly set up things and can only access the CLI environment of GCP, which is sometimes a hectic task.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Flexibility and costs were probably the most important thing for us. The cost was one of the big factors for choosing Alibaba Cloud relative to other cloud solutions, especially in Asia"
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"It is easy to set up."
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"Feature-wise, it provides many features, and ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."
"What I like the most about Google Compute Engine is SSH access and the different price categories."
"Compared to other IaaS providers, I believe that Google Compute Engine (GCE) stands out with the ability to customize the virtual machines."
"The support for ephemeral instances has been particularly valuable for me. It allows me to significantly reduce costs for temporary virtual machines by automatically destroying them once they are no longer needed, which can result in cost savings of up to 90 percent. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is auto-scaling."
"The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service."
"Google is managing all hardware. You don't need to provision or pre-provision your computer engine."
"In GCP, there's a custom configuration feature unlike AWS and Azure"
"I could not have found a better product to perform interactive data analysis and begin my career as a Data Engineer."
 

Cons

"A big area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is its support. Another area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is SDK-based service because sometimes, the SDKs don't work correctly. Support for API-based services also needs improvement in Alibaba Cloud because, at the moment, it's not that stable."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"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."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"Customer support has a lot of room for improvement. There's just general documentation, general customer support, and general maturity of the processes are all lacking when compared to Amazon or Google."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."
"It has some limitations. For example, you don't get through layer two connectivity. So I've had some difficulty deploying custom VMs. For example, you can't deploy a KVM file to file directly on GCP."
"The high availability features in Google are only available in Google Compute Engine in different regions. If I have another server outside Google, the high availability features in Google cannot synchronize with such a server."
"The licensing process is not a very straightforward process."
"At this point there is no ROI unless the business model fundamentally changes."
"The GCE only has virtual machines with processors and video cards of the new generation in the North American region, the GCE has expanded in new areas, like Latin America, but it does not carry powerful hardware."
"It would be better if there was an option to change the background. Like in Gmail, there's an option to change your theme."
"From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS."
"Google Compute Engine does not have many options at a lower tier level. If they had more options it will be better. For example, Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, have more options and different types of instances, of VMs we can select."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"I'm not sure about the exact pricing, but let's just say if it cost a dollar for Amazon AWS, it was closer to 70 to 80 cents for Alibaba Cloud."
"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."
"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."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"The product is not that expensive."
"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."
"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."
"In terms of improvement, one is definitely the licensing piece. So there is a feature, the BYOL (Bring Your Own License) licensing piece, to bring your own license. It is not that straightforward. It requires some support from Google to get it sorted, access those licenses, and configure those licenses."
"The tool is reasonably priced, considering its scalability features. If we want to extend the server's capacity, we can do it, and I think it's reasonable."
"Google Compute Engine is not the least expensive solution. Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft One, are offering a less expensive solution. The price is based on usage. Whenever we use it, we have to pay for only usage. It is a pay-as-you-go model."
"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."
"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Which solution do you prefer: Alibaba Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
Thanks for sharing these insights! I completely agree that Microsoft Azure provides IT administrators with strong centralized management, robust security controls through RBAC, and tools for cost o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Regarding the pricing and licensing of Google Compute Engine, when I refer to licensing, it implies the price or a credit-based system. While doing my personal projects, I prefer AWS over GCP and u...
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a d...
What is your primary use case for Google Compute Engine?
My usual use cases for Google Compute Engine involve deploying the backends and APIs only.
 

Also Known As

No data available
GCE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.