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Alibaba Cloud vs Google Firebase 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

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
Google Firebase
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
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 Alibaba Cloud is 12.5%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Firebase is 6.3%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Shravan Revanna - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple to get started with and offers integration features in multiple programming languages
The product provides integration features in multiple languages, such as Python, JavaScript, Golang, and all other languages. Google Firebase has documentation, which might seem a bit confusing, but one with decent knowledge can easily explore and get started with Firebase quickly. Before jumping into any cloud infrastructure, the tool should analyze how much it would cost to run the database. Google Firebase provides a certain number of reads and writes per day, which is approximately 40,000 reads and writes. If there are more than 200 to 300 active users per day, there will be plenty of reads and writes to the database. In such a case, one can't use Google Firebase and has to upgrade to Spark, which is where it is based on usage. The tool is fairly simple to get started with. Utilize all the features can get very complicated. One must be a pretty good developer who has a lot of experience to be able to utilize the best features. It gets really complicated over time. The basic functionality and basic usage are easy to use and easy to get started. There are plenty of deprecated versions, and frequently upgrading them causes inconvenience. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"Alibaba support is responsive. When we create tickets in the Alibaba portal, they usually respond online or call me in five minutes."
"Feature-wise, it provides many features. ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"We use the solution's AI features for data analysis."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"The access to Firestore is very easy."
"The solution is useful for managing users and user authentication."
"I found the flexibility of handling and dealing with database through EDL to be very useful."
"This solution supports our real time database. We also use it for AB testing and for its Google Cloud functions. We make use of Crashlytics and reporting on details."
"It is a completely reliable product."
"The connection between Firebase and the integrated development environments, especially when using Android Studio, is crucial as it saves time."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The solution should have more integration."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"A big area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is its support. Another area for improvement in Alibaba Cloud is SDK-based service because sometimes, the SDKs don't work correctly. Support for API-based services also needs improvement in Alibaba Cloud because, at the moment, it's not that stable."
"Alibaba Cloud's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"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."
"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."
"The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement."
"The solution could improve by providing an improved SDK tool and automatic indexing for databases."
"The cold start-up of the cloud function needs to speed up. For me personally, I'm not experienced in anything there, however, I've just read online it's a problem."
"The product must support more complex queries."
"The platform's bandwidth is quite expensive. Its price could be better."
"If I were to review the service, it would be about paid functionalities, like implementing notifications, is easy, but debugging is not."
"I would like to see faster data migration and some support for other languages in the next release."
"The initial setup is not exactly straightforward."
"What I hate most about Google Firebase is that it has many different versions and releases new ones frequently."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"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."
"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"
"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud. Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"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."
"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."
"The tool is affordable."
"We are using the free version of Google Firebase."
"The price is perfect and very clearly defined. The price during the trial setup is free and then you move to a paid service."
"Google Firebase is an expensive solution."
"It is not easy to calculate the cost per copy, use or if the load rose dramatically we did not know how that would impact the final price."
"The monthly cost is based on writing data and queries to the database."
"The pricing plans indicate it can get very expensive."
"The pricing component is a bit confusing when it comes to what exactly you'll pay for, but I wouldn't say it's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
10%
Educational Organization
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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,...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
What do you like most about Google Firebase?
Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Google Firebase and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.