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Alibaba Cloud vs Google Compute Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

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)
9th
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)
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 12.9%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Min HtetOo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
WahyuKurniawan - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonably priced and offers high availability features
The synchronization between two tools, meaning if I have another server outside Google Cloud, as far as I know, I cannot mimic the server in Google Cloud to another server outside Google Cloud. I don't know if Google has the above-mentioned features or not, and if it does have them, then maybe Google can help us set things right and how to make a server mimic either of the servers outside Google. With the hot swap features or if Google Cloud itself is down, we can replace the services with another server. Right now, I have another server outside Google as a backup of a production server. There should be synchronization between servers inside Google and those outside it. 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"Feature-wise, it provides many features. ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."
"It is easy to set up."
"The installation is easy."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"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"
"The solution helps to direct SSH into the machine at the click of a button. It also helps to deploy container images right from the UI. There is no need to manage the containers on the machine. I also like the tool’s Spot provision model."
"Google Compute is highly scalable."
"One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups."
"I recommend the tool to others since it has high availability features, scalability, and stability."
"Google is managing all hardware. You don't need to provision or pre-provision your computer engine."
"The main motive for choosing Google Compute Engine is pricing."
"The initial setup is reasonably straightforward. It's a handful of networks and a handful of computers."
"It's the most engineer-friendly product compared to Amazon AWS or Azure."
 

Cons

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"From the improvement point of view, there are lots of issues that we are facing. In all the areas, it seems like it is not mature. For example, a customer wants to provision some VM that has many configurations. If I want to show the price to the customer, it is very challenging. The SDK that Alibaba has provided is very limited. We can have the pricing for VM, but we cannot have pricing for RDS databases or some other services. This is a big concern area for us. They should put more effort into the SDKs or APIs that they provide, for example, pricing APIs or pricing SDK. They do not provide support for most of the services they provide. For example, if I want to get the price of MongoDB, that SDK is not available from Alibaba. Similarly, robust API support is required for S3, which is OSS or Object Storage, so that we can read the data in a faster manner, for example, in chunks. We have raised many issues with the Alibaba support team, and they have been fixing the issues after we report them."
"Alibaba Cloud has some problems related to latency and connection issues. If you go for a cloud solution provider, you will need to access the Internet, which may result in latency and bandwidth issues, leading to slowness in operations."
"The user experience must be improved."
"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"It is not very user-friendly for non-experienced users"
"Google has a lack of focus on their products."
"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."
"Sometimes support takes time to reply."
"The biggest problem is that it's got a very archaean and complex security environment that has to be very carefully set up and is easy to break."
"Sometimes support takes time to reply."
"I rate the product's stability around five to six out of ten."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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'."
"I noticed on the pricing that it's quite expensive. It is the price you pay for making a practical choice for enterprise-level companies since it has so many features and it fits an enterprise-level company just like our company right now."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"The product is not that expensive."
"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."
"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"
"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."
"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."
"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."
"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."
"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."
"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alibaba Cloud?
ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution.
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 more complex and better suited for developers and R&D teams. On the other hand,...
What do you like most about Google Compute Engine?
Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Google resources are cheaper compared to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Among the three, Google is the cheapest option.
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Google has a lack of focus on their products. They have many products in various areas of the market, but they do not productize or appeal to the market effectively. They should concentrate on prod...
 

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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.