Alibaba Cloud vs Gcore Comparison
Compare Alibaba Cloud vs Gcore features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
Alibaba Cloud
6.5/10
Alibaba Group's public cloud platform, offering pay-as-you-go compute, storage, databases, CDN, security and AI services to businesses, with an especially strong presence in Asia.
Gcore
6.8/10
Luxembourg-based edge and cloud provider offering CDN, virtual machines, bare metal, managed Kubernetes, object storage, AI GPU cloud, and DDoS/WAF security for businesses.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.5/10 | 6.8/10 |
| Integration | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 5/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | €390/mo DDoS Protection Start |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | €390/mo DDoS Protection Start |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Managed Databases | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Object Storage | ||
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
Alibaba Cloud vs Gcore cost by team size
| Team size | Alibaba Cloud | Gcore |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | Contact for pricing | €390/moDDoS Protection Start |
| 5 users | Contact for pricing | €390/moDDoS Protection Start |
| 10 users | Contact for pricing | €390/moDDoS Protection Start |
| 25 users | Contact for pricing | €390/moDDoS Protection Start |
| 50 users | Contact for pricing | €390/moDDoS Protection Start |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Alibaba Cloud
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Gcore
- Has a free plan (Alibaba Cloud does not)
- Higher Integration score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (6/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
Alibaba Cloud
Pros
- Low hosting costs in Asia, according to PeerSpot reviewers
- Very broad catalogue that covers compute, storage, databases, CDN, security and AI
- Dense region coverage in China and Asia-Pacific, with 106 zones across 31 regions
- Scaling up or down is straightforward, and redundant or mirror setups are supported
Cons
- Support is often described as slow and hard to reach
- Accurate pricing is hard to find for some services, such as RDS and MongoDB
- SDK and API quality is uneven across services
- The console is more complex for newcomers than some rival clouds'
Gcore
Pros
- The CDN includes 1 TB of traffic and 1 billion requests free each month, and traffic after that starts at 0.01 EUR per GB.
- DDoS protection pricing does not depend on attack size, and mitigation is not metered on any plan.
- The managed Kubernetes control plane is free with high availability, so you pay only for the nodes.
- A large edge footprint, reported at about 210 PoPs and 200 Tbps of capacity, suits latency-sensitive workloads such as gaming and streaming.
- Headquarters in Luxembourg is an advantage for buyers who prefer an EU-based provider.
Cons
- Trustpilot scores are around 2.5 out of 5, with complaints about recurring billing, refunds, and slow support.
- There is no public price list for VMs and bare metal; prices are only available through the calculator.
- The Terraform v2 provider is still in alpha and Gcore says it is not ready for production.
- The product range is very broad, which can make it harder for small teams to understand how pricing works.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Gcore scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 6.8/10 against 6.5/10 for Alibaba Cloud. The largest gap is in Customization: 8/10 for Alibaba Cloud and 7/10 for Gcore.
Gcore has a free plan; Alibaba Cloud does not list one.
