# Alibaba Cloud

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Alibaba Cloud and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a comparable alternative to AWS, GCP and Azure with a broad set of services. Critics most often raise Chinese data law, prompt retention and sign-up friction.

## Why people recommend it

- Comparable to AWS, GCP and Azure (2 comments): "they're pretty close in services and offerings to what AWS, GCP and Azure provides" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122384)) "alibaba cloud have a similar solution" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531321))
- Impressive, strong service range (2 comments): "Alibaba has impressive looking services" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46836663)) "Alibaba is excellent top-5 easily." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126804))
- Easy to use, few problems (2 comments): "I think it's quite user-friendly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46104380)) "Not a single problem at all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576004))

## What people warn about

- Chinese law and data retention concerns (3 comments): "they retain prompts for an unknown period. So they might not explicitly use your data for training, but they do store it indefinitely on their servers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48389209)) "It'll be held to Chinese data standards and law. Keep that in mind." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625983)) "the internet law in china is very restrictive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123036))
- Account setup and sign-up friction (3 comments): "Alibaba Cloud requires account setup and only offers meaningful discounts at enterprise volume." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47846124)) "the amount of steps from creating an account made me stop, it was too much" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46770305)) "Alibaba Cloud has too much friction for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151887))
- Expensive with no spending caps (2 comments): "they are expensive, can easily hit 200 USD / 3 days which do not count towards your membership" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48967922)) "They have no caps. This was the reason to cancel my account there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48339847))
- Banned in India and some networks (2 comments): "I banned Alibaba's Cloud two years ago and it still hits one of my domains 1 million times per day" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074115)) "India has quite literally banned Alibaba Cloud and related." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49260064))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-web-services.md): 248 recommend
- [Google Cloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-cloud-platform.md): 161 recommend
- [Microsoft Azure](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-azure.md): 153 recommend
- [Scaleway](https://hackerapproved.com/p/scaleway.md): 70 recommend
- [Oracle Cloud Free Tier](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oracle-cloud.md): 70 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.alibabacloud.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Alibaba Cloud", https://hackerapproved.com/p/alibaba-cloud/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).