Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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)
11th
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 January 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 8.5%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S4HANA on AWS is 2.6%, 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 Cloud8.5%
SAP S4HANA on AWS2.6%
Other88.9%
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

"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."
"We use the solution to run VMs."
"We use the product for storage and as a VPN."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"What's good about Alibaba Cloud is its database service. It's also good in the virtual machine area."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy for me since I had a background in cloud products."
"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable. It's quite inexpensive."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of SAP S/4HANA on AWS include its availability and performance."
"Provides good performance and regular release of new features."
"The reporting capability is good, providing very in-depth information."
"There are two main features that we find very valuable. One is the interface and the new user experience. That's really, really helpful for the end-user. The second is the HANA database itself because it speeds up the process. In other solutions, like Oracle, there is a lot of redundancy that slows things down."
"SAP has an auto-scaling feature, but Azure doesn't."
"The most valuable feature of SAP S4HANA is Fiori. It allows users to access information quickly and easily, without having to navigate through unnecessary screens or transactions. Additionally, the ability to retrieve data more efficiently is helpful. Furthermore, the pre-delivered videos and functionalities within the solution allow for easier application building."
"The Fiori interface is the most valuable feature. It's one of the highlights that they offer. The in-memory of S4 is very fast."
 

Cons

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"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 solution should have more integration."
"The user experience must be improved."
"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."
"The solution name is not favorable in some markets and could cause us some problems gaining customers."
"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 solution needs to improve its graphical user interface."
"We had some storage and legacy migrations problems with SAP S4HANA on AWS."
"S4HANA is expensive. It costs much more than SuccessFactors."
"The tool should undergo an overall improvement, including support. Data sharing should also be faster."
"SAP S4HANA could be improved by adding a click-to-deploy model."
"The product's implementation phase can be very complex for customers."
"There are a few complexities when it comes to licensing that could be simplified."
"There are times when the solution can become slower. The stability could improve."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"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 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"
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"I noticed on the pricing that it's quite expensive. It is the price you pay for making a practical choice for enterprise-level companies since it has so many features and it fits an enterprise-level company just like our company right now."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than 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 is better than similar solutions."
"The pricing is a little bit high."
"I would rate the pricing as a two and a half out of five."
"It is a significant investment, around six hundred thousand dollars, and it involves both a one-time on-premises installation on servers and a cloud subscription with different flavors for SAP S4HANA."
"There are additional modules-wise, it's needed for modules, and also for any new functions."
"It's expensive. It would be good if AWS and Azure could reduce the computing cost for people who move to the public cloud."
"SAP S4HANA on AWS has reasonable pricing."
"I rate the product price a six on a one to ten scale, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Licensing fees are on an annual basis."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Retailer
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 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.
What is your primary use case for SAP S4HANA on AWS?
We transitioned from being an existing Business One ( /products/sap-business-one-reviews ) user to using SAP S4HANA on AWS ( /products/sap-s4hana-on-aws-reviews ) because our business outgrew the p...
 

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.
880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.