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Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) vs. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) vs. Amazon Web Services

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)

    Score4 out of 10
    N/AAlibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) provides fast memory and Intel CPUs to help power cloud applications and achieve fast results with low latency. All ECS instances come with Anti-DDoS protection to safeguard data and applications from DDoS and Trojan attacks.N/A

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch instances with a variety of OSs, load them with custom application environments, manage network access permissions, and run images on multiple systems.

    $0.01

    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis

    Amazon Web Services

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing services. With over 165 services offered, AWS services can provide users with a comprehensive suite of infrastructure and computing building blocks and tools.

    $100

    per month

    Pricing
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Data Transfer
    $0.00 - $0.09
    per GB
    On-Demand
    $0.0042 - $6.528
    per Hour
    EBS-Optimized Instances
    $0.005
    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
    Carrier IP Addresses
    $0.005 - $0.10
    T4g Instances
    $0.04
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
    T2, T3 Instances
    $0.05 ($0.096)
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
    Free Tier
    $0
    per month
    Basic Environment
    $100 - $200
    per month
    Intermediate Environment
    $250 - $600
    per month
    Advanced Environment
    $600-$2500
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——AWS allows a “save when you commit” option that offers lower prices when you sign up for a 1- or 3- year term that includes an AWS service or category of services.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Considered Multiple Products
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answer on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    We have been using EC2 for so much longer, that even though we use Azure's other features and services more then the equivalent AWS features and services, we don't usually go for Azure's VM offerings first over EC2. I guess that that means this recommendation is mostly based …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for me is the easy choice for servers. There are so many tools out there, specifically terraform and packer, that allow easy integration with EC2. It is great for any sized company. I have also used Google and Digital Ocean, but my first …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    AWS is by far the most mature platform, but others are catching up. We will be keeping a close eye on the competition and using them whenever they're a better fit for the workload than AWS.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    It is better than other products in terms of their support team, documentation and initially, you can set up your services almost without paying anything. Apart from them, AWS services do have the best availability in any region in compared to other cloud products available …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    When it comes to AWS EC2, the technical aspects are about equal to many of the other cloud services, but where AWS EC2 shines at is its management, and growth capabilities. You can start your web based business using AWS for literally zero start-up costs: you use the same …
    Incentivized
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon Web Services
    AWS provides a vast array of services and, compared to Microsoft Azure licensing costs, is a cheaper alternative.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Web Services
    OCI and Google Compute Engine are a bit cheaper than AWS but AWS has better chargeback and more granular monitoring of various KPIs. But at the same time, AWS has a learning curve while GCE especially is much easier to use. Microsoft Azur has a much better partner and developer …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Web Services
    Azure is the other product that we have used for some of our clients. In certain places Azure was very competitively priced and clients chose to go with Azure as a platform. Billing by the minute is definitely a competitive advantage in certain cases. AWS pricing structures …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Would buy again
    25 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    48 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    26 Answers
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    27 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    50 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    38 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    40 Answers
    Features
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Web Services
    Feature
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)
    -
    Ratings
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    8.7
    27 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Amazon Web Services
    8.6
    79 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings9.425 Ratings9.273 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings9.226 Ratings8.974 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings9.725 Ratings9.470 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.726 Ratings7.567 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.125 Ratings8.774 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.525 Ratings8.367 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.326 Ratings8.273 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.526 Ratings8.875 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.116 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Likelihood to Recommend
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (73 ratings)
    8.0
    (91 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (10 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (11 ratings)
    7.8
    (22 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    7.2
    (24 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS)Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Web Services
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    Suitable for companies that are looking for performance at a competitive price, flexibility to switch instance type even with RI, flexibility to add-on IOPS, option to lower running cost with the regular introduction of new instance type that comes with higher performance but at a lower cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    This is something that is actually common across most cloud providers. A comprehensive understanding of one's use cases, constraints and future directions is key to determining if you even need a cloud solution. If you are a 2-person startup developing something with a best-scenario audience of 1k DAU in a year, you would very likely best served by a dirt-cheap dedicated Linux server somewhere (and your options to graduate to a cloud solution will still be open). If, however, you are a bigger fish, and/or you are actively considering build-vs-buy decisions for complicated, highly-loaded, six-figure requests per minute systems, global loadbalancing, extreme growth projections - then MAYBE you solve all or part of it with a cloud provider. And depending on your taste for risk, reliability, flexibility, track record - it might be AWS.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    • Huge Diverse range of machine shapes are available which cater to our demand.
    • Ability to combine the machines and integrate them with any other service in AWS (Ex: RDS, S3)
    • Handling performance and scalability using auto-scaling, ELB configuration and high performance machine shapes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    • During the month-end, we experience high resource utilization; however, with AWS's scalability, we can effectively tackle the peak load.
    • With AWS IAM, we don't need to set up complete infrastructure for identity and access management, as AWS provides end-to-end IAM services.
    • With AWS, development has become very easy as it's very quick to spin up and destroy the environment, which saves costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    • The choices on AMIs, instance types and additional configuration can be overwhelming for any non-DevOps person.
    • The pricing information should be more clear (than only providing the hourly cost) when launching the instance. AWS DynamoDB gives an estimated monthly cost when creating tables, and I would love to see similar cost estimation showing on EC2 instances individually, as not all developers gets access to the actual bills.
    • The term for reserving instances are at least 12 months. With instance types changing so fast and better instances coming out every other day, it's really hard to commit to an existing instance type for 1 or more years at a time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    • When there is any misconfiguration of EC2 related to SSM Connect. It doesn't clearly states that what particular configuration is missing.
    • Debugging networking related issues could be improved.
    • From the security group page, it's difficult to determine which resource a security group is associated with.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    We are almost entirely satisfied with the service. In order to move off it, we'd have to build for ourselves many of the services that AWS provides and the cost would be prohibitive. Although there are cost savings and security benefits to returning to the colo facility, we could never afford to do it, and we'd hate to give up the innovation and constant cycle of new features that AWS gives us.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    You an start using EC2 instances immediately, is so easy and intuitive to start using them, EC2 has wizard to create the EC2 instances in the web browser or if you are code savvy you can create them with simple line in the CLI or using an SDK. Once you are comfortable using EC2, you can even automate the process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    AWS offers a wide range of powerful services that cater to various business needs which is significant strength. The ability to scale resources on-demand is a major advantage making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. The sheer volume of options and configurations can be overwhelming for new users leading to a steep learning curve. While functional the AWS management console can feel cluttered and less intuitive compared to some competitors which can hinder navigation. Although some documentation lacks clarity and practical examples which can frustrate users trying to implement specific solutions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    Availability is very good, with the exception of occasional spectacular outages.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    AWS does not provide the raw performance that you can get by building your own custom infrastructure. However, it is often the case that the benefits of specialized, high-performance hardware do not necessarily outweigh the significant extra cost and risk. Performance as perceived by the user is very different from raw throughput.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    The customer support of Amazon Web Services are quick in their responses. I appreciate its entire team, which works amazingly, and provides professional support. AWS is a great tool, indeed, to provide customers a suitable way to
    immediately search for their compatible software's and also to guide them in a
    good direction. Moreover, this product is a good suggestion for every type of
    company because of its affordability and ease of use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    The API's were very well documented and was Janova's main point of entry into the services.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon EC2 is super flexible compared to the PaaS offerings like Heroku Platform and Google App Engine since with Amazon EC2, we have access to the terminal. In terms of pricing, it's basically just the same as Google Compute Engine. The deciding factor is Amazon EC2's native integration with other AWS services since they're all in the same cloud platform.
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon Web Services fits best for all levels of organisations like startup, mid level or enterprise. The services are easy to use and doesn't require a high level of understanding as you can learn via blogs or youtube videos. AWS is Reasonable in cost as the plan is pay as you use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Alibaba Cloud
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon AWS
    • It reduced the need for heavy on-premises instances. Also, it completely eliminates maintenance of the machine. Their SLA criteria are also matching business needs. Overall IAAS is the best option when information is not so crucial to post on the cloud.
    • It makes both horizontal and vertical scaling really easy. This keeps your infrastructure up and running even while you are increasing the capacity or facing more traffic. This leads to having better customer satisfaction.
    • If you do not choose your instance type suitable for your business, it may incur lots of extra costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Amazon AWS
    • Using Amazon Web Services has allowed us to develop and deploy new SAAS solutions quicker than we did when we used traditional web hosting. This has allowed us to grow our service offerings to clients and also add more value to our existing services.
    • Having AWS deployed has also allowed our development team to focus on delivering high-quality software without worrying about whether our servers will be able to handle the demand. Since AWS allows you to adjust your server needs based on demand, we can easily assign a faster server instance to ease and improve service without the client even knowing what we did.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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