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Alibaba Cloud vs Google Firebase comparison

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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)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Firebase
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Alibaba Cloud is 5.4%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Firebase is 3.7%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Firebase3.7%
Alibaba Cloud5.4%
Other90.9%
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.
Himash Careem - PeerSpot reviewer
Intermediate Software Engineer at Xelleron Pty
Analytics integration has improved how I manage user identity and understand customer behavior
I face difficulties with the authentication parts in Google Firebase when it goes with iOS applications. With Android applications, that is easier because Google owns it. When it goes to iOS applications, there should be a much more straightforward, smoother way. I mostly faced that with Flutter because with Flutter, there are two sides with Android and iOS. The Android part was pretty much easier for me, but when it goes to the iOS part, there was more work on that.

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."
"The cost of hosting the solution is very reasonable; it's quite inexpensive and the solution is very secure."
"Alibaba Cloud has lower costs and good support."
"I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten."
"ECS is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"Alibaba also offers a lot of flexibility compared to Google Cloud, where you can only use Google's Tools."
"It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure."
"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud, and Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."
"There are several features that I really appreciate about Google Firebase; it has an authentication and authorization tool, a real-time database, and serverless cloud functions."
"I found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful."
"It's stable."
"Google Firebase has a lot of services like storage, Firestore, and push notifications."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The main feature for us is that the tools are all in one place and that you don't need to bother with the backend system and the infrastructure."
"The most valuable features of Google Firebase have been Analytics, Remote Config, and Crashlytics. Additionally, a lot of companies have used push notifications which is important. There is little maintenance required."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"If you want more accuracy, stability, and 24/7 customer support, primarily relying on the SDKs and APIs, you should think twice."
"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."
"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 needs to increase availability in Thailand."
"I wouldn't recommend Alibaba. I think other companies should just use Azure instead, as it's a much simpler solution."
"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 should have more integration."
"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."
"The solution's notification system could be much better."
"The customization options for password resetting are limited. The process requires additional steps and coding to make it user-friendly. While Google Firebase works well for the login page, password resetting and user verification redirect users to a separate interface, which is not very user-friendly."
"Google Cloud Functions (which is still a BETA version) needs to have more control over the uploaded functions. That is, it needs more options for controlling the functions itself."
"One of the challenges I was facing when I was using it was the library called Google Dialogflow which allows you to connect your chatbot with an intent. So there is so much adding when you are trying to connect it with your service because you have to do a lot of repetition writing a new intent, putting it step by set so it is good to escape. I believe it should be flexible and dedicate the intents based on the relating and to write a lesser code when doing that."
"Their technical support needs to be enhanced with more support for customers."
"Since Google Firebase is a NoSQL platform, areas for improvement include enhancing query functionalities to be more equivalent to SQL, like MS SQL."
"The solution needs to offer capabilities to work offline. Like Firestore, we should be able to do insertion, updating, and deletion offline."
"The product is complicated for beginners to understand."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is better than similar solutions."
"The price of Alibaba Cloud is good. If I was to use Microsoft Azure I would have to pay 30 percent more."
"I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS."
"Pricing for Alibaba Cloud is a little bit cheaper. It has reasonable pricing."
"The product is not that expensive."
"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"
"We cut our costs significantly by migrating our infrastructure to the cloud. Alibaba Cloud employs a pay-as-you-go model, so that minimizes many costs for us."
"The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'."
"The moment you go into volumes, then you work on a pay-per-volume basis."
"Google Firebase’s pricing needs improvement."
"The tool is affordable."
"It is an expensive tool."
"We are using the free version of Google Firebase."
"My company makes monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"Google Firebase is an expensive solution."
"The price is perfect and very clearly defined. The price during the trial setup is free and then you move to a paid service."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Which solution do you prefer: Alibaba Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
Thanks for sharing these insights! I completely agree that Microsoft Azure provides IT administrators with strong centralized management, robust security controls through RBAC, and tools for cost o...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Firebase?
The pricing structure needs improvement since it uses cloud billing. We do not know how the pricing is calculated as it is all on the cloud. They could have implemented credits based on usage so th...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Schneider Electric, BorderX Lab, Royal Philips, Catchpoint, Conversant, Blogmint
Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about Alibaba Cloud vs. Google Firebase and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.