Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud is Alibaba’s cloud infrastructure division, operating 32 regions with 105 availability zones spread across six continents. The platform offers virtual machines (ECS), containers (Kubernetes), serverless functions, and managed databases alongside storage, networking, security and AI services. Instances run Linux and Windows, support multiple programming languages including Python, Node.js, Java, Go and PHP, and can be provisioned via control panel, API or marketplace images.

Billing is usage-based and metered per service, with hourly and monthly payment options. Customers can build across all service categories—compute, storage, networking, databases, AI and data analytics—in a single account across all regions. SSH access to instances is available with root privileges.

Worth knowing

Alibaba Cloud operates infrastructure on multiple continents but headquarters in China. Entry-level compute instances are available, and the platform offers a free trial covering 80+ services including up to 12 months free ECS eligibility for new accounts.