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Alibaba Cloud vs SAP S4HANA on AWS 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)
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP S4HANA on AWS
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 9.9%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S4HANA on AWS is 2.7%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Alibaba Cloud9.9%
SAP S4HANA on AWS2.7%
Other87.4%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Min HtetOo - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Marketing Officer at Soft Intelligence
The solution is useful for application development, but the user interface and user experience must be improved
The product must be made easier to use. The design is a bit tricky. When we log in to the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace and browse products, they look very small. The user experience must be improved. Alibaba Cloud must increase its partner network and brand awareness in our country. It will give our customers more opportunities to scale and save in the long run.
AtifNajam - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CIO at Ghulam Faruque Group
Strong integration in manufacturing and enhances flexibility with useful workflow management
Installation is very straightforward, however, implementation takes years or months based on the project's size. In manufacturing, the requirement might go from ten to 12 people. If I'm a sales-oriented company, such as an FMCG or something else, then I might need around seven or eight people at the very minimum. It is not an easy task to migrate. If I'm moving from a different ERP to S/4HANA, I need a proper project that probably spans several months, with significant engagement from both the business side and the technical side. I need an opportunity partner on it. Processing to SCE S/4HANA takes a bit of effort.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"It is a scalable product. So, scaling up or scaling down is possible."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"We use the solution to run VMs."
"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."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Alibaba Cloud is the communication it allows between two servers."
"The product efficiently manages the data center without manual intervention."
"The most valuable feature of SAP S4HANA on AWS is that when developed on a new structured system it can be configured."
"Overall, I am very satisfied with the solution, and it has proven to be highly beneficial to our organization."
"The product’s high availability is its best feature."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly."
"They have their own instances where you can host your database."
"SAP S4HANA on AWS has high performance. All the data is in one place and it's real-time. When you make an entry you don't have to wait a couple of minutes, hours, or overnight as something the batch process takes time. It is instantaneous and is available to everybody."
"SAP has an auto-scaling feature, but Azure doesn't."
 

Cons

"It is not robust."
"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's initial setup is somewhat complex."
"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."
"Regarding security issues, Alibaba Cloud is more complex and better suited for developers and R&D teams. On the other hand, Google Cloud is more convenient for new users."
"The flexibility of the solution could be improved."
"The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The GUI is age-old, the pricing is too high for hardware and older customizations are not working consistently."
"The manufacturing application system, it's not as user-friendly in S4HANA."
"I would like scalability to be improved in the future for faster performance."
"Over the last three to four years, I haven't encountered significant issues with SAP S/4HANA. While occasional system bugs are normal in software, the overall experience has been positive. As a business partner, it stands out as a reliable ERP solution."
"The product could use more capabilities in the areas of robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, but these improvements are already on the way."
"Currently, we have some integration areas like Concur and Ariba that could be improved. Having these integrations as a single source rather than working in silos would be beneficial for customers."
"The solution's overall enterprise support could be improved."
"Businesses are particularly interested in process automation, mobile, and web applications. These are the areas that SAP S4HANA is and should be looking to improve on, especially in terms of streamlining processes and automating certain steps."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not that expensive."
"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 price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"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."
"SAP S4HANA on AWS has reasonable pricing."
"The pricing is a little bit high."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"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."
"There are additional modules-wise, it's needed for modules, and also for any new functions."
"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."
"Licensing fees are on an annual basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
 

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,...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S4HANA on AWS?
The initial setup required a higher investment, but the return on investment has justified the cost.
What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA on AWS?
Currently, we have some integration areas like Concur and Ariba that could be improved. Having these integrations as a single source rather than working in silos would be beneficial for customers.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP S/4HANA on AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Brigade Group, DoHome, Royal FloraHolland
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. SAP S4HANA on AWS and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.