AWS vs. Alibaba Cloud
Which One Is Better?
At CloudState, we usually don’t compare cloud providers or single out any cloud as better than the other. We believe that while you can talk about particular services, weighing one cloud against another as a whole makes a little sense.
First of all, every cloud choice should be driven by a particular use case. For some companies, Microsoft Azure will be far more beneficial, yet others will be better off with Google Cloud Platform, for example. Secondly, the discussion about the prevalence of one cloud over another is like deliberating on whether it’s better to spend holidays by the sea or in the mountains. A single and definite answer to that question simply doesn’t exist.
Having said that, we decided to make an exception in this article. We’ll examine two major cloud vendors, Amazon Web Services and Alibaba Cloud, and see how they compare. Why these two in particular? Read on to find out and see what Alibaba Cloud has in common with Xiaomi devices😉
Amazon Web Services vs. Alibaba Cloud. Comparing Basic Features
First, let’s have a look at our good, old Gartner’s quadrant.
As usual, Amazon Web Services is way ahead of the curve, while Alibaba Cloud performance is close to that of IMB and Oracle cloud services.
Essential Facts
Let’s compare a few essentials about the two cloud offerings:
What I found surprising is that Alibaba is only three years junior to AWS. Even so, many people are still unaware of its existence. One fact that may account for it is that it’s revenue is seven times smaller than the one of AWS. However, both providers report a steady revenue growth year by year.
Market
A great majority of AWS clients are based in the USA, and that’s the primary target geography for the company. All new AWS services first appear in the North Virginia region and are then made available in the remaining locations. The next area for AWS in terms of prominence is the UK, followed by the rest of Europe, and then farther regions such as India and China.
In contrast, Alibaba focuses primarily on Southeast Asia, China in particular. That’s the cloud birthplace and the main area of its market focus. At the moment, the Chinese can access far more Alibaba services than the rest of the world.
Regions
AWS has regions in all parts of the world, with the USA and Europe taking precedence. However, there are also regions in China (Beijing), for instance. However, using the AWS service here is not exactly straightforward.
If you log into the AWS console, you won’t see Beijing on the list of available regions. To use it, you need to set up an individual, separate account with a different login and password. This is due to several factors, including the limitations imposed by the Chinese ICP license that’s mandatory to host any website in China.
On the other hand, if we have a look at Alibaba Cloud, it’s dominated by Chinese data centers. That makes running an Internet service in China much more comfortable with this vendor. Of course, Alibaba has its regions in Europe and the USA. What’s more, it also extends its services to the Middle East, particular Dubai. AWS doesn’t have a data center in this area yet, though it recently announced the launch of its data center in Bahrain.
Community and Documentation
AWS is on the front foot here, offering rich documentation and practical examples. Amazon can also boast a broad and vibrant community that’s always eager to share knowledge and information.
Alibaba is definitely at a disadvantage, with documentation that is frequently incomplete or outdated. In terms of community, it is quite large but located predominantly in Asia (particularly in China), which brings about a language barrier.
What Do Alibaba Cloud and Xiaomi Phones Have in Common?
If I were to name a single feature distinguishing Chinese vendors, I’d say… speed. Why? Every time a new, innovative project crops up in the U.S., Chinese companies follow and release their own, cheaper version. They do it wholly unabashed and always stick to the minutest detail in the design.
Have a look at Xiaomi. The minute a brand new smartphone model launches in the U.S., Xiaomi, or another Chinese device manufacturer release their own version that bears a striking resemblance to the American brand.
How about another example. Have you heard of Lepin brick sets? They are a faithful copy of Lego bricks, fully compatible with the original and… much less expensive. Other noteworthy examples of Chinese equivalents of global household brands include PlayStation (Popstation), SONY (SQMY), Pizza Hut (Pizza Huh), or KFC (KFG).
A question arises, whether Alibaba Cloud also resembles the AWS cloud, and to what extent.
Is Alibaba Cloud a 1:1 Copy of AWS?
Let’s compare some service names first:
- AWS Simple Storage Service — Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service
- AWS RDS — Alibaba Cloud ApsaraDB for RDS
- AWS VPC — Alibaba Cloud VPC
- AWS Auto Scaling — Alibaba Cloud Auto Scaling
- AWS Direct Connect — Alibaba Cloud Express Connect
- AWS VPN Gateway — Alibaba Cloud VPN Gateway
You can’t help but see the uncanny resemblance of many Alibaba service names to their AWS counterparts. Not all of the names are identical, but they are usually similar enough for AWS users to figure out which one is which.
However, it’s not always as simple. Take the ECS service, for instance. The name is the same in both providers, but the services are different. In Alibaba, ECS stands for Elastic Compute Service, so virtual machines, and in AWS — Elastic Container Service, so container management.
We should also take a look at interfaces from both vendors. Here’s a screen presenting ECS Alibaba Cloud service.
And here’s an analogical console view for AWS EC2:
The branding and colors, of course, differ, but the layout of the corresponding functions and the UI look are strikingly similar. On the left, we can see buttons for managing the services; in the center, there are some statistics on the running virtual machines; the right-hand side panels feature additional information.
Truth be told, after spending some time navigating the AWS console, I had no issues with finding my way around in Alibaba (as opposed to Azure where I still get lost occasionally).
Here are a few more commonalities that the two clouds share:
- Alibaba Cloud Storage API is compatible with the API of S3 service in AWS.
- AWS has its own Linux distribution, Amazon Linux. Alibaba has Aliyun Linux. They’re both based on CentOS.
- Both clouds have similar payment models.
- Virtual machine sizes are also the same in both clouds (nano, small, micro, large).
That is not to say Alibaba simply emulates features from AWS. It would be a gross overstatement, as the Chinese vendor has many innovative solutions and services in place that are still missing from Amazon. However, I believe AWS has been a source of enormous inspiration for Alibaba makers.
Let’s Take Another Look at Costs
Price is the main reason for a customer to choose Lepi over Lego and Xiaomi over iPhone. After all, affordability is one of the most significant competitive advantages of the Chinese economy.
How About Alibaba vs. AWS Pricing?
Compiling a reliable comparison of Alibaba vs. AWS pricing is quite challenging, as the final cost depends on multiple factors, including region, service type, service use, or data transfer.
However, if we match the prices of a few essential services, here’s what we can get:
- Data storage service (OSS /S3). Alibaba running in Frankfurt charges $0.2 per 1GB per month. In AWS, a comparable service costs $0.24.
- The hourly charge for the smallest available database server (1 CPU, 1 GB RAM) is $0.019 in Alibaba and $0.02 in AWS.
- Serverless pricing (Lambda in AWS, and Function Compute in Alibaba) is the same at each provider.
- For a basic virtual machine, with 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, we will pay $0.019 per hour in Alibaba, and slightly more in AWS — $0.0134.
- However, at $3.5, basic hosting in AWS is much cheaper than in Alibaba ($5.9).
Is Alibaba More Affordable Than AWS?
As always, there’s only one answer to that question: It depends. Generally speaking, services from the Chinese provider cost less, though not in every case.
Does Alibaba Offer the Same Services as AWS, but For Less?
Again, it depends. Alibaba Cloud is not as mature as AWS yet. The U.S. provider gives us a more global infrastructure, more services, better UX, much more comprehensive documentation, and a broader worldwide community. Alibaba Cloud is continually developing to gain on AWS, but it still has some catching up to do.
Is Alibaba Cloud Like Xiaomi Phone?
In a sense, yes. Choosing the Chinese cloud provider can usually save you some money, however, probably at the slight expense of quality. Unless you are planning to run services in China — then we definitely recommend choosing Alibaba. In any other case, it takes some effort to determine which provider offers us the best price-performance ratio.
