Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) vs Hetzner Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) and Hetzner Cloud.
Quick Verdict
3.7/5
Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun)
0 reviews
4.4/5
Hetzner Cloud
0 reviews
Hetzner Cloud is rated higher (4.4 vs 3.7). Alibaba Cloud is the dominant cloud in China and largest cloud in Asia-Pacific. Essential for any application targeting Chinese users. Compliant with Chinese regulations. German cloud provider offering the best price-to-performance ratio in the market. CX22 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB NVMe) costs €4.35/month. Loved by European developers for fast NVMe, generous bandwidth, a
Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Asia-Pacific and China cloud by Alibaba | Hetzner Cloud Affordable VPS hosting with fast deployment and transparent pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.7 (0 reviews) | 4.4 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $5.99/mo |
| Best for | Businesses targeting users in mainland China or Asia-Pacific who need a full hyperscaler stack in-region, and technically mature teams comfortable with Chinese regulatory requirements. | Developers and small teams who want unmanaged Linux infrastructure at the lowest cost per unit of compute, especially for European workloads with data-residency requirements, dev/test environments, CI runners, and price-sensitive production web apps. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 2 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 4 GB |
| Storage | — | 40 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 20 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | — | 6 |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €3.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €1.50 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,820 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 2,100 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 42,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 18 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | GermanyFinlandUnited StatesSingapore |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotseu datacenterus datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerapi access |
| Visit Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) → | Visit Hetzner Cloud → | |
Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun)
Pros
- + The only complete cloud platform inside mainland China
- + Largest Asia-Pacific footprint — 29 regions and 87 availability zones
- + Generous trial: up to $450-$1,300 in credits, 12-month ECS free trial
- + Competitive instance pricing with hourly billing and GPU families
- + Strong China-network connectivity and Hong Kong/Singapore bridges
Cons
- - Mainland regions need real-name verification and ICP filing
- - Dual international/mainland accounts and complex billing
- - Geopolitical and GDPR due-diligence burden for Western buyers
- - Thinner third-party ecosystem and mixed-language docs
Hetzner Cloud
Pros
- + Best CPU-per-euro in our 2026-04-01 benchmark run: the CX22 outperformed plans costing up to six times as much
- + Strong NVMe throughput: 2,100-2,400 MB/s sequential reads and 42,000-48,000 random 4K IOPS in our tests
- + Transparent hourly billing with a monthly price cap and no setup fees or contracts
- + Six cloud locations with owned, ISO 27001-certified EU data centers and GDPR-compliant processing
- + At least 20 TB included transfer at EU locations, plus free DDoS mitigation for all customers
- + Mature automation: REST API, Terraform provider, official Go/Python libraries, cloud firewalls and private networks
Cons
- - Backups and snapshots are paid add-ons rather than plan inclusions, which erodes the headline price advantage
- - Email-only support with no phone option and no managed tier for cloud customers
- - Entry plans use shared vCPUs and Hetzner offers no bandwidth guarantee (typical 300-500 Mbit/s stated by Hetzner)
- - No supported Windows installs and a smaller managed-ecosystem than larger providers
- - Default resource limits on new accounts require a support ticket to raise; cost-optimized stock is periodically unavailable
- - Object storage only available in the three European locations
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