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Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Alibaba Cloud 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

Akamai Connected Cloud (Lin...
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (12th)
Alibaba Cloud
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
8th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is 7.2%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 12.5%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Graham - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful automation scripts, good documentation, responsive support, easy to use and manage
The ability to fire up a virtual machine, use it, and then kill it, is quite a valuable feature for me. They have a lot of startup scripts, I think they are called stack scripts, whereby you can install something at a click of a button. For instance, you can install a whole server at the click of a button. Linode gives the users a lot of control. Another thing that I use quite a lot is their documentation. They have documentation on how to perform tasks and often, I use that to educate a client on how to do something or on how to maintain something, et cetera. This is because a lot of customers are used to simpler systems like an iPhone, where if you want an app then you just download it from a store, press a button and it installs, or press a button and it updates. The truth of the matter is that with servers and things like that, whilst people like the push button idea, it's a lot more complex than that. With these stack scripts, the people at Linode have thought about all of the things that a new user would not think about. They do all of that stuff and then walk you through it, and that's where Linode's documentation is really good. They walk you through what you have to do to secure a server, what you have to do to run a patch, or whatever. They've got all those sorts of knowledge bases of information, which I think is invaluable, especially for clients who are uneducated in these things. It's extremely important to me that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, for various reasons. One is that because we live in this global world, our customers are everywhere. Secondly, for people who need geo-redundancy, with for example a server in China and one elsewhere as a backup, it's great. It's also nice because if they were just US-based, I wouldn't be able to use them because I would need to go through a whole process of trying to certify the data integrity in other regions. I'm sure that most people wouldn't bother with this because of all of the EU laws and the UK laws around data privacy. The US's data privacy laws are far more relaxed than what they are on my side of the world. The fact that I can have a server in London means that I don't have to bother with all of that. My physical location of that server is in London and to me, it is really important. When you compare Amazon, they claim to have infrastructure all over the place but I think that the bulk is centered in Germany. Even if it is in a few different places, everything gets backed up to the US, which is a problem for a lot of people.
Aderonke  Adeyegbe - PeerSpot reviewer
Good storage, great for smaller companies, and has impressive support
We're all aware that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation, and we believe that Alibaba, due to its pedigree, has what it takes to take small businesses to the cloud. It's a game-changer, for sure. The storage is very useful. It is easy to set up. Technical support is good. It is quite stable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Service availability is the most valuable feature. It gives every user 100 percent uptime."
"The most valuable feature is that they are flexible and easy to get ahold of if I need something."
"Overall, Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is easy to use and has a fair price, making it accessible and straightforward, which is crucial when compared to other complex solutions."
"It is also important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. The ability to deploy on multiple servers, worldwide, allows us to have distributed services and failover and redundancy."
"It has helped to minimize the risk and scale services at large in virtually no time."
"For small businesses and people who have some technical skills and are good with Linux command line, this solution is great. I love Linode because it is very fast. Whereas, the same configuration on Azure and AWS will be so slow. The best thing is that their pricing and speed are great."
"When I started using Linode, I found its functionality easy to navigate, user-friendly and responsive to my needs. It provides clear reminders about services I'm not using, like DNS zones, which I appreciate."
"I very much like the support that you get, and I think that it's excellent."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"It is easy to set up."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"Flexibility and costs were probably the most important thing for us. The cost was one of the big factors for choosing Alibaba Cloud relative to other cloud solutions, especially in Asia"
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
 

Cons

"Before they changed the dashboard, I found some of the more granular options easier to find."
"It would be helpful if they provided the additional Linux distributions that I prefer using. But there is still a workaround. I can do it without direct support. It's a bit more complicated, but it can still be done."
"They are already working on the firewalls and VLANs, which need improvement, and are now in beta. I am on the beta program for the firewalls, but I can't use it yet because they are only in Mumbai and Australia, and I am not in those data centres. This is the one thing that I have been waiting for almost since the day that I joined them, so it is nice that they are doing that. The VLANs will be an improvement as well, and I am keen and waiting for that."
"When it comes to marketing and exposure, Linode needs improvement because I just randomly found them by looking for Linux solutions."
"I would like Linode (without cluttering things) to provide some type of DevOps workflow where people are configuring their pipelines from running their tests and deploying to their test server. Once approved by clicking a button, it just gets deployed to production. I would like something like Azure DevOps, which we use for large applications, and would be something nice to have in Linode."
"Its cost can be improved."
"Our primary concern is always the latency."
"Because they are a smaller company, they do not have, for example, all of the ways for authentication that Amazon or Azure has."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"Users use websites as a tutorial. However, the Alibaba Cloud website has the content, and the scripts are copied from Amazon Web Services. We had received customer feedback where the customer asked us to get formulate original content instead of copying from Amazon Web Services. It’s very odd and awkward."
"Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"I think that sometimes the customer service for Alibaba Cloud is inefficient.... Sometimes it's hard to reach out to them."
"The user experience must be improved."
"It is not robust."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing-wise, I find it simple in that they give you a monthly fee, but they also charge it hourly. So, if you are using the service for a small part of the month, then you are only paying for that small amount instead of a whole month, like with other providers. It is a flat monthly fee if you use the service for the entire month. It just makes things so simple. Because they are focusing on Linux, you don't have to worry about licensing costs of Windows and things like that. So, the price that they give you is the price that you need to pay each month. I just find it so simple compared to the likes of AWS and Azure. It is nice, easy, and predictable. I know exactly what I am going to be paying each month and what resources I get for that price."
"Currently, we are at $40 a month but they have costly solutions as well."
"I pay just over £20 per month and have done so ever since I started eight years ago, which to me is good value."
"Pricing is very good and flexible, according to the resources required."
"is a little cheaper than Google or Amazon, more or less on par with the other competitors."
"The solution is neither cheap nor expensive."
"I pay $5 per month for each of three servers, for a total of $15 per month, and I normally prepay a few months in advance."
"The pricing model is simple."
"I'm not sure about the exact pricing, but let's just say if it cost a dollar for Amazon AWS, it was closer to 70 to 80 cents 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."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"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"
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Linode?
When I started using Linode, I found its functionality easy to navigate, user-friendly and responsive to my needs. It provides clear reminders about services I'm not using, like DNS zones, which I ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Linode?
I find Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)'s pricing very competitive. They never charge extra without improvements. I always receive more features for the same price.
What needs improvement with Linode?
There was an option to sort domains by tags, which seems to have been removed. It would be useful to have the option to sort or group by tags on the domains page.
What do you like most about Alibaba Cloud?
ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution.
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,...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Best Buy, Panasonic, Giphy, Marco Polo, World Health Organization, Font Squirrel
Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs. Alibaba Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.