Alibaba Cloud vs VMware Cloud Foundation comparison

Alibaba and VMware are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Alibaba is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.4, while VMware is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3. Alibaba holds a 13.0% mindshare in ISI, compared to VMware’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Alibaba users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Alibaba Cloud

Read 19 Alibaba Cloud reviews

6,093 Views
6,093 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

VMware Cloud Foundation

Read 32 VMware Cloud Foundation reviews

2,892 Views
665 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Alibaba Cloud

VMware Cloud Foundation

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Alibaba Cloud and VMware Cloud Foundation are competing in cloud infrastructure, focusing on virtualization and cloud services. Alibaba Cloud has a competitive edge in cost-effectiveness and flexibility, particularly in Asia, whereas VMware Cloud Foundation excels in robust infrastructure management and disaster recovery.

Features: Alibaba Cloud offers cost-effectiveness, a range of features including compute instances and databases, and user-friendly tools with strong server communication capabilities. VMware Cloud Foundation provides robust disaster recovery, life cycle management, and simple deployment, suited for complex virtualization needs.

Room for Improvement: Alibaba Cloud should improve usability, expand SDK and API support, and enhance support services and integration with other systems. VMware Cloud Foundation needs to lower pricing, improve integration capabilities, refine its upgrade process and customization options, and enhance support responsiveness.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alibaba Cloud offers ease of use as a public cloud solution with flexible deployment but needs better customer support and technical documentation. VMware Cloud Foundation provides an intuitive deployment process for on-premises and hybrid clouds but could benefit from more knowledgeable support staff and improved documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Alibaba Cloud is known for competitive pricing, often cheaper than AWS and Azure, leading to satisfactory ROI with its pay-as-you-go model. VMware Cloud Foundation is perceived as expensive, with high annual subscriptions and licensing costs, though users feel the quality and features justify the price but would benefit from more competitive pricing models.

To learn more, read our detailed Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation

July 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)

8th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Cloud Foundation

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 13.0%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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.

Read full review

Narasimha Reddy Illuri

VMware Administrator at Infosys

There is progress in performance and stability, but further advancements are needed for end-user satisfaction

VMware Cloud Foundation's best features include its advanced capabilities, security purposes, and performance levels. The solution offers efficient licensing options. Previously, vSphere essential was available, but now it has moved to VMware Cloud Foundation 8.0. It includes advanced features such as lifecycle manager, patching level, and cluster level patching options. The solution now offers auto-deployment of VMs. Previously, I had to use the content library, right-click, and create VMs manually. With VMware Cloud Foundation, auto-deployment is possible by simply right-clicking and assigning a specific DHCP IP, enabling physical to vCenter level communication for automatic VM deployment. The workload portability feature in VMware Cloud Foundation provides good workload balance. For instance, in a cluster level with four to five ESXi hosts, each host has minimum resources allocated for CPU and memory, resulting in significantly reduced utilization at the VMware Cloud Foundation level.

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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

"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."

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

"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."

"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."

"We use the solution to run VMs."

"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"

"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."

More Alibaba Cloud pros

"We are using it for infrastructure automation."

"We use VMware Cloud Foundation mainly for the virtualization part, and because it's a suite where everything is combined, we have vSphere and vCenter."

"The ability to auto-scale is the most valuable feature."

"VMware Cloud Foundation's best features include its advanced capabilities, security purposes, and performance levels."

"They have in release 4.0 features from vSphere and Cloud Suite. It's a complete data center."

"The fact that it automates a lot of manual processes in a net new environment build is most valuable."

"The initial setup is straightforward and easy."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the disaster recovery software."

More VMware Cloud Foundation pros

Cons

"The solution should have more integration."

"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."

"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 flexibility of the solution could be improved."

"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."

"From a performance point of view, Huawei and Azure are faster. Alibaba isn't as good."

"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."

"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."

More Alibaba Cloud cons

"The price could be better. VMware Cloud Foundation is overpriced, but I think we get what we pay for. It would be better if it were cheaper because it would be easier to go to customers and get them to buy it. We'd get more projects, and that would be great."

"In the early adoption of VMware Cloud Foundation, we have seen minor problems. For example, in our Federation, I see the single pane of glass where we need to manage everything, which is good. However, internally, we have a Kafka database that is distributed by the database used by the SDDC manager. During the distribution and synchronization, there is some issue and we need to stop the process."

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

"From a stability perspective, there may be some issues."

"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."

"Life cycle management is an area for improvement."

"The solution's log management could be improved because the logs don't provide enough information."

"The interface is good, but there are compatibility issues or issues with the certificate for the VCenter."

More VMware Cloud Foundation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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"

"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."

"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."

"The solution's pricing is the same as 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."

More Alibaba Cloud pricing and cost advice

"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive."

"The pricing of VMware Cloud Foundation could improve, it is expensive."

"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is a bit high. However, it comes with a lot of useful features and can handle a lot of operational complexity. Overall the price can be seen as being fair for what it offers."

"The pricing is moderate. I would rate it six out of ten."

"This solutuion can be expensive for small and medium-sized companies."

"The pricing can be more competitive."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved and made more flexible."

"The licensing is expensive compared with Hyper V and Unitech's platform."

More VMware Cloud Foundation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

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 VMware Cloud Foundation?

VMware Cloud Foundation provides us with the vSphere dashboard through which we can manage, monitor, schedule, and spin up your virtual machines. We can manage, monitor, and get reports of your inf...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?

I'm not involved in sales, so I have no specific information about pricing. However, I've heard it's not a cheap product, but the cost includes very good support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?

VMware Cloud Foundation is complex, and there are always updates regarding security features, accessibility, and the user interface. Making changes isn't simple because there are a lot of tables to...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 29% of the time

Google Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 26% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

Tencent Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

More Alibaba Cloud Competitors

Azure Stack vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 46% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 12% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Outposts vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Cloud Foundation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud

August 2025

Download Alibaba Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Cloud Foundation

July 2025

Download VMware Cloud Foundation product report

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

VMware Cloud Foundation makes it easy to deploy and run a hybrid cloud. VMware Cloud Foundation provides integrated cloud infrastructure (compute, storage, networking, and security) and cloud management services to run enterprise applications in both private and public environments.

VMware

Sample Customers

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

ricoh, dell technologies, sky

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation

July 2025

Free Report: Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation

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