Alibaba Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS comparison

Alibaba and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Alibaba is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.5, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.9. Alibaba holds a 12.5% mindshare in ISI, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Alibaba users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

Alibaba Cloud

Read 19 Alibaba Cloud reviews

6,754 Views
5,356 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Read 40 SAP S4HANA on AWS reviews

2,637 Views
2,236 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Alibaba Cloud

SAP S4HANA on AWS

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

SAP S4HANA on AWS and Alibaba Cloud compete in cloud computing, focusing on ERP and infrastructure services respectively. SAP S4HANA on AWS seems to have the technological upper hand with advanced features and robust database management, but it faces criticism for high costs, while Alibaba Cloud offers a more economical solution with flexibility for SMEs.

Features: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers high-performance capabilities with the HANA database, enabling efficient real-time processing and integration. Its AWS integration minimizes the need for extensive on-premises setups, enhancing scalability. Alibaba Cloud provides economical solutions with flexible tools similar to AWS, offering a user-friendly interface and appealing pricing for SMEs, especially in Asia.

Room for Improvement: SAP S4HANA on AWS could benefit from reduced complexity and a better user interface, alongside more comprehensive documentation and expanded cloud provider support. Alibaba Cloud needs to address latency issues outside China, improve technical support, and enhance its SDK services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP S4HANA on AWS offers reliable integration across various cloud environments, supported by AWS's robust infrastructure support, although costly. User satisfaction with support varies. Alibaba Cloud is noted for its simplicity in deployment within public cloud infrastructures but requires improvements in technical support and community resources.

Pricing and ROI: SAP S4HANA on AWS is a high-cost solution justified by its advanced features and long-term cloud hosting savings. Pricing varies with licensing models. Alibaba Cloud, with its competitive pricing, is attractive to businesses in Asia, promising cost savings and a stable ROI compared to major competitors.

To learn more, read our detailed Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

March 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP S4HANA on AWS

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

6th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

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 SAP S4HANA on AWS is 3.9%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Aderonke Adeyegbe

CEO at Comercio Limited

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.

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Bhavesh Shah

SAP Cloud Engineer SAP Commvault Backup Administrator- DC Migrations on AWS at CLARIANT SE

With good documentation in place, the solution offers good technical support to its users

CPU architecture is an area where the solution currently has some issues. Improvement in CPU architecture could improve the performance side and the adherence to the parameters set by SAP. As suggested by SAP, we should do HANA mini checks on a daily or weekly basis. All the parameters related to HANA should be equal to improve performance. So, some of the parameters I can see on the SAP side are related to memory, and so we have to check on each landscape whether the parameters related to SAP are properly set or not. Regarding the right CPU from AWS and SAP recommended nodes, we have to check whether the performance is good or not because we have to give this almost on HANA since, on some side, we have to be swapping that on voice level also, and so that screening part is a requirement from OS/DB side. In short, we have to check all parameters. My solution is IOPS related to EC2. So I have just done a very good optimization. I have seen some parameters related to Linux that is from SAP side, where the problem is very fast, and CPU load is very low. So that is an OS/DB recommendation parameter from the SAP that it should be set over there on all systems. As a basic start, we have to check OS/DB recommendation settings, and everything should be kept on. Those experienced in SAP S4HANA need not worry about any part. I think overlay IP should be linked to gateway web architecture. It should be in a proper way to the community for the security part. Apart from that, we have to follow Amazon and SAP books. There have to be some adjustments made from the finance and GRC side. So, we have to check some of the functional sides and whether these parameters are properly set in for SAP s1 in terms of logistics, MRV, and some of the code. I can recommend that SAP's 86 custom code should be a proper way to develop a very good experience going online for the custom tools. So, it would be good to improve such features and everything. Also, the system should not be at any end of support since it will impact its performance. I have faced some of the, you know, clients, where they have some end of support, comes into 7209, and they just back it up. I need to get some extended support from the SAP, and some software should be there. So before the end of maintenance, everybody has to awaken all the features of the solution. On a daily production side, we can do this maintenance activity, whether it may be outdated or not outdated, and support patches should be done properly.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable. It's quite inexpensive."

"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."

"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"

"Alibaba Cloud allows for easy setup of mirror sites and backup servers, ensuring data redundancy and high availability."

"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."

"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."

"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."

"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."

More Alibaba Cloud pros

"It's easy to use and user-friendly."

"This product is currently the leading product within this category."

"The most valuable features of SAP S4HANA on AWS are that it's simplified and the analytical capabilities are good."

"We have found the retail business features to be the most valuable."

"I recommend SAP S4HANA if your team is well-prepared and your internal organization is educated before implementation."

"The most valuable feature of SAP S4HANA on AWS is that when developed on a new structured system it can be configured."

"We deployed the database from another team called ECC into an SAP HANA system. The implementation project took about eighteen months. That team handled the technical aspects."

"I like that they are very familiar with our VM which makes it easy to use."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pros

Cons

"From the improvement point of view, there are lots of issues that we are facing. In all the areas, it seems like it is not mature. For example, a customer wants to provision some VM that has many configurations. If I want to show the price to the customer, it is very challenging. The SDK that Alibaba has provided is very limited. We can have the pricing for VM, but we cannot have pricing for RDS databases or some other services. This is a big concern area for us. They should put more effort into the SDKs or APIs that they provide, for example, pricing APIs or pricing SDK. They do not provide support for most of the services they provide. For example, if I want to get the price of MongoDB, that SDK is not available from Alibaba. Similarly, robust API support is required for S3, which is OSS or Object Storage, so that we can read the data in a faster manner, for example, in chunks. We have raised many issues with the Alibaba support team, and they have been fixing the issues after we report them."

"It is not robust."

"The user experience must 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."

"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."

"The support offered by the tool is ridiculous."

"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."

More Alibaba Cloud cons

"More availability zones will help customers choose AWS. I would like to see features that provide easier onboarding for ERP solutions like SAP. SAP has already partnered with S/4HANA on AWS for hosting its public cloud as well. More educational videos for customers to choose this cloud path would be great to have. That is, providing more documentation and marketing material would be better."

"The manufacturing application system, it's not as user-friendly in S4HANA."

"Doesn't have a common development environment."

"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a three out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy."

"SAP S4HANA on AWS could improve by having more data centers because there are limited data centers in the region I am in. Amazon AWS has announced a few more data centers to be added, but they're still not 100 percent operational for SAP solutions."

"SAP S4HANA could be improved by adding a click-to-deploy model."

"The AI aspect of SAP S4HANA can be improved."

"Not just S4 but for SAP in general, the price is a little high because they have implemented a new licensing scheme on a number of connections. The price being too expensive is some of the feedback we get from our customers."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that expensive."

"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."

"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."

"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."

"Alibaba Cloud is cheaper."

"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."

"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."

More Alibaba Cloud pricing and cost advice

"We pay a monthly fee for the use of SAP S4HANA on AWS for approximately five years. That's the time of the contract."

"It's expensive. It would be good if AWS and Azure could reduce the computing cost for people who move to the public cloud."

"The pricing is on the higher end."

"The pricing is a little bit high."

"The price of SAP S4HANA on AWS is reasonable, given how much it costs to maintain a scratch-built system. To upgrade the support there is a fee."

"SAP S4HANA's pricing model should be more flexible and transparent - there's a lot of negotiation and internal factors, and some customers get better value and services for the same product."

"I would rate the pricing as a two and a half out of five."

"The vendors have different pricing, ways of serving, security, and providing the service. You go and compare the offerings. Some might be better with smaller companies. For example, Microsoft Azure can handle small and medium-sized companies best but still can cover some large companies. Whereas Amazon AWS and IBM are going to cover sized companies. There's no clear advantage. Probably Amazon AWS may have been the first to be certified by SAP as a cloud-hosting partner. Then Microsoft Azure and IBM were certified at the same time. You have to partner up and be certified by the software."

More SAP S4HANA on AWS pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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,...

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP S4HANA on AWS?

With extensive data and a sizable client base, this ensures seamless operations, responsiveness, and overall reliability, addressing our enterprise-scale needs effectively.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S4HANA on AWS?

SAP is not cheap, with many hidden costs encountered during implementation. On a scale of one to ten for expense, SAP is a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA on AWS?

There are many things already there. There just needs to be a document approval workflow, which is not limited to procurement and other documents. There might be an additional document approval wor...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 34% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 30% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Tencent Cloud vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Alibaba Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

More Alibaba Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 70% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 11% of the time

Google Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 9% of the time

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon AWS vs SAP S4HANA on AWS

Compared 4% of the time

More SAP S4HANA on AWS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud

March 2025

Download Alibaba Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP S4HANA on AWS

March 2025

Download SAP S4HANA on AWS product report

Also Known As

No data available

SAP S/4HANA on AWS

Overview

Alibaba Cloud offers a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support growing enterprises worldwide, including data storage, relational databases, big-data processing, and content delivery networks.

Alibaba

SAP customers of all sizes can fully realize all the benefits of the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud. With SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition on the AWS Cloud you can:

Achieve faster time to value with the AWS on-demand infrastructure
Rapidly provision infrastructure for SAP S/4HANA with no upfront cost or long-term commitment
Pay for only what you need Don't spend upfront costs purchasing hardware for what you can't forecast
Test and evaluate SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition with a free trial offering from SAP on AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint

Brigade Group, DoHome, Royal FloraHolland

Buyer's Guide

Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS

March 2025

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