Cloud · head to head · checked 8 August 2026

Alibaba Cloud vs Azure

5 cloud instances from the two, side by side: what each plan includes, what it costs (on-demand hourly rate × 730 hours, no commitment discount), and where the price comes from.

Alibaba Cloud

from $16.79/mo

ecs.n4.small · 3 plans listed

Best price per vCPU: $16.79/vCPU (ecs.n4.small)

Azure

from $70.08/mo

D2s v5 · 2 plans listed

Best price per vCPU: $35.04/vCPU (D2s v5)

Which is cheaper, Alibaba Cloud or Azure?

Alibaba Cloud's cheapest listed plan is ecs.n4.small at $16.79/mo; Azure's is D2s v5 at $70.08/mo. The price shown is on-demand hourly rate × 730 hours, no commitment discount.

Which gives more for the money, Alibaba Cloud or Azure?

On price per vCPU, Alibaba Cloud does best with ecs.n4.small at $16.79/vCPU; Azure's best is D2s v5 at $35.04/vCPU.

How many cloud instances does each offer here?

We list 3 for Alibaba Cloud and 2 for Azure, each checked against the provider's own pricing page.

Alibaba Cloud

Everything from Alibaba Cloud

ecs.n4.smallapprox
vCPU
1
RAM
2 GB
Hourly
$0.023
Note
Pay-as-you-go — system disk and public bandwidth billed separately
Region
Singapore
$16.79/moVisit price source · checked 2026-08-08
ecs.n4.largeapprox
vCPU
2
RAM
4 GB
Hourly
$0.047
Note
Pay-as-you-go — system disk and public bandwidth billed separately
Region
Singapore
$34.31/moVisit price source · checked 2026-08-08
ecs.n4.xlargeapprox
vCPU
4
RAM
8 GB
Hourly
$0.154
Note
Pay-as-you-go — system disk and public bandwidth billed separately
Region
Singapore
$112.42/moVisit price source · checked 2026-08-08

Azure

Everything from Azure

D2s v5approx
vCPU
2
RAM
8 GB
Hourly
$0.096
Note
Linux pay-as-you-go rate — Windows costs more. Azure VMs get no public IP by default; a Standard SKU Public IP resource is billed separately at ~$0.005/hr (~$3.65/mo) — not included in the price shown, unlike Oracle/Alibaba/Tencent which bundle a public IP free
Region
East US
$70.08/moVisit price source · checked 2026-08-05
D4s v5approx
vCPU
4
RAM
16 GB
Hourly
$0.192
Note
Linux pay-as-you-go rate — Windows costs more. Azure VMs get no public IP by default; a Standard SKU Public IP resource is billed separately at ~$0.005/hr (~$3.65/mo) — not included in the price shown, unlike Oracle/Alibaba/Tencent which bundle a public IP free
Region
East US
$140.16/moVisit price source · checked 2026-08-05

Alibaba Cloud against the rest

Azure against the rest

How this page is made: every figure above is computed from the plans listed, which were checked against each provider's own pricing page (linked per plan, with the date). Nothing here is ranked by who pays us. The highlighted plan is each provider's best on price per vCPU. Non-USD prices are converted at an approximate fixed rate for comparison only. See our methodology and how we make money.