Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) vs Scaleway
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) and Scaleway.
Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Asia-Pacific and China cloud by Alibaba | Scaleway French cloud with GDPR-native design | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (400 reviews) | 4.8 (475 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Businesses needing cloud infrastructure in mainland China or the Asia-Pacific region | European companies who need GDPR-compliant infrastructure and want a French alternative to AWS |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 2 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 2 GB |
| Storage | — | 20 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | — | 5 |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €0.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €0.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | FranceNetherlandsPoland |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access | free tierhourly billingipv6ddos protectionsnapshotsmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerkubernetes supportapi access |
| Visit Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) → | Visit Scaleway → | |
Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun)
Pros
- + Only viable cloud for China market
- + Largest APAC cloud
- + $450 free credits for new accounts
Cons
- - Requires Chinese registration for China regions
- - Complex compliance for non-Chinese companies
Scaleway
Pros
- + French jurisdiction — strong GDPR and data sovereignty
- + Free tier includes starter VPS instances
- + Serverless functions and containers in one ecosystem
Cons
- - Primarily EU-only — limited global reach
- - Less documentation than AWS/DigitalOcean
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