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Alibaba Cloud vs VMware Cloud Foundation 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)
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Cloud Foundation
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.2%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Cloud Foundation2.1%
Alibaba Cloud5.2%
Other92.7%
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.
Narasimha Reddy Illuri - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alibaba also offers a lot of flexibility compared to Google Cloud, where you can only use Google's Tools."
"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"We use the solution to run VMs."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"Alibaba Cloud allows for easy setup of mirror sites and backup servers, ensuring data redundancy and high availability."
"It is easy to set up."
"I like that VMware Cloud Foundation reduces both the installation and setup time from a matter of weeks to hours."
"The solution is very stable."
"Amongst everything that's out there, I would rate the product a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable aspect of VMware Cloud Foundation is you can manage everything from area."
"VMware Cloud Foundation can be used to make private clouds faster than the traditional way and can also be used for continuity."
"Over time, VMware has improved a lot in terms of the interface and it's getting easier to use with a cleaner dashboard."
"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 stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is very high."
 

Cons

"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"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."
"It is not robust."
"The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"The solution should have more integration."
"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."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"Compared to Nutanix, which many people consider a better option due to its single platform approach, VMware Cloud Foundation operates on different platforms."
"We would like the ability to write to both sites at the same time, in a synchronous fashion."
"Life cycle management is an area for improvement."
"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 update. People in the field may not feel confident about managing it."
"VMware Cloud Foundation could be more flexible in terms of supporting other integration and components."
"After the acquisition, prices have been going up."
"Working on features that could include the capability to migrate workflows from non-VMware environments would be highly beneficial."
"An improvement needed is an upgrade to make it more scalable and automated, so that it can be easier to navigate within the cloud and the Kubernetes and vSphere, enabling VMware Cloud Foundation to deliver a more scalable hybrid cloud and manage the lifecycle between the management and Kubernetes section."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that expensive."
"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."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"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"
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"The pricing is moderate. I would rate it six out of ten."
"The pricing of VMware Cloud Foundation could improve, it is expensive."
"VMware Cloud Foundation is overpriced, but I think we get what we pay for."
"The tool's price is slightly on the higher side, but I guess you think there is no one-to-one comparison with other tools. The licensing part has become easier, while earlier, it was quite complex."
"This solutuion can be expensive for small and medium-sized companies."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten."
"There is an annual license required to use the solution."
"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?
The price for VMware Cloud Foundation is not cheap, as the market is competitive with AWS cloud. When comparing prices of both clouds, AWS is cheaper because they offer a free section for practice....
What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?
In VMware Cloud Foundation, areas that have room for improvement include the experience between VMware Cloud Foundation and the cloud. I prefer working with the cloud due to my study with the archi...
What is your primary use case for VMware Cloud Foundation?
Regarding my experience with application migration between on-premises and public clouds using VMware Cloud Foundation, I have used it for storage deployment.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
ricoh, dell technologies, sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. VMware Cloud Foundation and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.