Alibaba Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS comparison

Alibaba and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Alibaba is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.4, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0. Alibaba holds a 11.9% mindshare in ISI, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Alibaba users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

Alibaba Cloud

Read 19 Alibaba Cloud reviews

5,769 Views
5,769 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Read 41 SAP S4HANA on AWS reviews

1,881 Views
1,862 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Alibaba Cloud

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

SAP S4HANA on AWS and Alibaba Cloud compete in cloud computing, focusing on ERP and infrastructure services respectively. SAP S4HANA on AWS seems to have the technological upper hand with advanced features and robust database management, but it faces criticism for high costs, while Alibaba Cloud offers a more economical solution with flexibility for SMEs.

Features: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers high-performance capabilities with the HANA database, enabling efficient real-time processing and integration. Its AWS integration minimizes the need for extensive on-premises setups, enhancing scalability. Alibaba Cloud provides economical solutions with flexible tools similar to AWS, offering a user-friendly interface and appealing pricing for SMEs, especially in Asia.

Room for Improvement: SAP S4HANA on AWS could benefit from reduced complexity and a better user interface, alongside more comprehensive documentation and expanded cloud provider support. Alibaba Cloud needs to address latency issues outside China, improve technical support, and enhance its SDK services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers reliable integration across various cloud environments, supported by AWS's robust infrastructure support, although costly. User satisfaction with support varies. Alibaba Cloud is noted for its simplicity in deployment within public cloud infrastructures but requires improvements in technical support and community resources.

Pricing and ROI: SAP S4HANA on AWS is a high-cost solution justified by its advanced features and long-term cloud hosting savings. Pricing varies with licensing models. Alibaba Cloud, with its competitive pricing, is attractive to businesses in Asia, promising cost savings and a stable ROI compared to major competitors.

To learn more, read our detailed Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

September 2025

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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)

7th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 11.9%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S4HANA on AWS is 3.0%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Alibaba Cloud	11.9%
SAP S4HANA on AWS	3.0%
Other	85.1%

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Min HtetOo

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.

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AtifNajam

Group CIO at Ghulam Faruque Group

Strong integration in manufacturing and enhances flexibility with useful workflow management

Installation is very straightforward, however, implementation takes years or months based on the project's size. In manufacturing, the requirement might go from ten to 12 people. If I'm a sales-oriented company, such as an FMCG or something else, then I might need around seven or eight people at the very minimum. It is not an easy task to migrate. If I'm moving from a different ERP to S/4HANA, I need a proper project that probably spans several months, with significant engagement from both the business side and the technical side. I need an opportunity partner on it. Processing to SCE S/4HANA takes a bit of effort.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Feature-wise, it provides many features. ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."

"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."

"The installation is easy."

"It is easy to set up."

"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."

"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable. It's quite inexpensive."

"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."

"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."

More Alibaba Cloud pros

"The product efficiently manages the data center without manual intervention."

"The system has the capacity to manage all these departments in a single box and they're all integrated."

"We deployed the database from another team called ECC into an SAP HANA system. The implementation project took about eighteen months. That team handled the technical aspects."

"The product’s high availability is its best feature."

"The most valuable feature of SAP S4HANA on AWS is that when developed on a new structured system it can be configured."

"The Fiori interface is the most valuable feature. It's one of the highlights that they offer. The in-memory of S4 is very fast."

"This product is much better than most of the other products in this categaory as far as financial capabilities."

"SAP S4HANA's most valuable features include backup, security, storage, infrastructure, and enabling AI."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pros

Cons

"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 support offered by the tool is ridiculous."

"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."

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."

"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."

"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."

"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."

"The solution should have more integration."

More Alibaba Cloud cons

"More availability zones will help customers choose AWS. I would like to see features that provide easier onboarding for ERP solutions like SAP. SAP has already partnered with S/4HANA on AWS for hosting its public cloud as well. More educational videos for customers to choose this cloud path would be great to have. That is, providing more documentation and marketing material would be better."

"Over the last three to four years, I haven't encountered significant issues with SAP S/4HANA. While occasional system bugs are normal in software, the overall experience has been positive. As a business partner, it stands out as a reliable ERP solution."

"This solution is very resource-intensive, including high memory and CPU utilization."

"The platform's front-end user interface needs improvement compared to other applications."

"SAP S4HANA could be improved by adding a click-to-deploy model."

"SAP S4HANA on AWS could improve by having more data centers because there are limited data centers in the region I am in. Amazon AWS has announced a few more data centers to be added, but they're still not 100 percent operational for SAP solutions."

"There are a few complexities when it comes to licensing that could be simplified."

"The product can be very complex."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is better than similar solutions."

"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."

"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."

"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."

"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."

"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."

"The product is not that expensive."

More Alibaba Cloud pricing and cost advice

"It is a significant investment, around six hundred thousand dollars, and it involves both a one-time on-premises installation on servers and a cloud subscription with different flavors for SAP S4HANA."

"We pay an annual subscription fee for the solution, which is slightly expensive."

"The vendors have different pricing, ways of serving, security, and providing the service. You go and compare the offerings. Some might be better with smaller companies. For example, Microsoft Azure can handle small and medium-sized companies best but still can cover some large companies. Whereas Amazon AWS and IBM are going to cover sized companies. There's no clear advantage. Probably Amazon AWS may have been the first to be certified by SAP as a cloud-hosting partner. Then Microsoft Azure and IBM were certified at the same time. You have to partner up and be certified by the software."

"I rate the price of SAP S4HANA on AWS an eight out of ten."

"There are additional modules-wise, it's needed for modules, and also for any new functions."

"We pay a monthly fee for the use of SAP S4HANA on AWS for approximately five years. That's the time of the contract."

"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest price, I rate the solution's pricing an eight."

"I would rate the pricing as a two and a half out of five."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Educational Organization

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alibaba Cloud?

ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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,...

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP S4HANA on AWS?

With extensive data and a sizable client base, this ensures seamless operations, responsiveness, and overall reliability, addressing our enterprise-scale needs effectively.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S4HANA on AWS?

The initial setup required a higher investment, but the return on investment has justified the cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA on AWS?

Currently, we have some integration areas like Concur and Ariba that could be improved. Having these integrations as a single source rather than working in silos would be beneficial for customers.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 27% of the time

Google Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 21% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 21% of the time

Tencent Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Network Cloud Service vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 1% of the time

More Alibaba Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 56% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon AWS vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 11% of the time

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 3% of the time

More SAP S4HANA on AWS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud

October 2025

Download Alibaba Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP S4HANA on AWS

October 2025

Download SAP S4HANA on AWS product report

Also Known As

No data available

SAP S/4HANA on AWS

Overview

Alibaba Cloud offers a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support growing enterprises worldwide, including data storage, relational databases, big-data processing, and content delivery networks.

Alibaba

SAP customers of all sizes can fully realize all the benefits of the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud. With SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud you can:

Achieve faster time to value with the AWS on-demand infrastructure
Rapidly provision infrastructure for SAP S/4HANA with no upfront cost or long-term commitment
Pay for only what you need Don't spend upfront costs purchasing hardware for what you can't forecast
Test and evaluate SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition with a free trial offering from SAP on AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint

Brigade Group, DoHome, Royal FloraHolland

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

September 2025

Free Report: Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

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