Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Firebase 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)
8th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Firebase
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 13.3%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Firebase is 4.9%, down from 6.9% 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.
Shravan Revanna - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple to get started with and offers integration features in multiple programming languages
The product provides integration features in multiple languages, such as Python, JavaScript, Golang, and all other languages. Google Firebase has documentation, which might seem a bit confusing, but one with decent knowledge can easily explore and get started with Firebase quickly. Before jumping into any cloud infrastructure, the tool should analyze how much it would cost to run the database. Google Firebase provides a certain number of reads and writes per day, which is approximately 40,000 reads and writes. If there are more than 200 to 300 active users per day, there will be plenty of reads and writes to the database. In such a case, one can't use Google Firebase and has to upgrade to Spark, which is where it is based on usage. The tool is fairly simple to get started with. Utilize all the features can get very complicated. One must be a pretty good developer who has a lot of experience to be able to utilize the best features. It gets really complicated over time. The basic functionality and basic usage are easy to use and easy to get started. There are plenty of deprecated versions, and frequently upgrading them causes inconvenience. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"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"
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"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 I like is about the realtime. Updates are also very fast."
"The real-time database feature is the most valuable, allowing real-time feedback without needing to constantly poll the database."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"I love Firebase's notifications, crash analytics, and bug tracking. It gives you detailed reporting about app usage and users."
"Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution."
"The most valuable features of Google Firebase are its database, noSQL database, file storage, authentication, and notifications."
"It has security rules to control database read/write operations in real-time."
"It's stable."
 

Cons

"Users use websites as a tutorial. However, the Alibaba Cloud website has the content, and the scripts are copied from Amazon Web Services. We had received customer feedback where the customer asked us to get formulate original content instead of copying from Amazon Web Services. It’s very odd and awkward."
"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 solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"It is not robust."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."
"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."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"The product must support more complex queries."
"The exploration of the functions within Firebase could be improved."
"Their technical support needs to be enhanced with more support for customers."
"The solution could improve by providing an improved SDK tool and automatic indexing for databases."
"They could add a session replay to better understand how a crash or bug happened."
"There needs to be an easy way to duplicate a database."
"The notifications must be made a little bit better."
"Google Cloud Functions (which is still a BETA version) needs to have more control over the uploaded functions. That is, it needs more options for controlling the functions itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 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 product is not that expensive."
"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."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"It is an expensive tool."
"The price of Google Firebase is very good."
"The more the number of reads and writes, the more one gets charged."
"The product is free."
"My company makes very minimal payments toward the licensing costs of the solution."
"The pricing component is a bit confusing when it comes to what exactly you'll pay for, but I wouldn't say it's expensive."
"The pricing plans indicate it can get very expensive."
"I rate Google Firebase a seven or eight out of ten for pricing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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,...
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. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
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 flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
What do you like most about Google Firebase?
Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Google Firebase and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.