Alibaba Cloud, AWS & DigitalOcean: Cloud Services Compared

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Cloud computing allows you to use computer services such as servers, databases, analytics and more over the internet using virtual machines.

The idea has been around since the inception of the Internet, but it really began to take off when Amazon launched its Elastic Compute Cloud in 2006, which later became known as Amazon Web Services, or AWS. Many other competitors have entered the market since then as cloud computing has blossomed into a huge growth industry.

Cloud Computing providers allow you to host websites and applications, store data and assets, run software as a service applications, provide on-demand services such as streaming videos, photo backup and storage and even use artificial intelligence services.

One of the key benefits of cloud computing is that as you only pay for what you use, in a similar way that you pay for gas or electricity. You can almost think of it as 'renting' a server located 'in the cloud'. This makes it a very inexpensive way of gaining access to multiple high-end servers, running the latest software without the cost and hassle of running the actual servers yourself.

Another advantage of cloud computing is elastic scaling, which is the ability to increase or decrease the amount of computing power that your service uses, as and when required, using load balancers. This allows you to launch your service without the need big up-front investment and helps to take some of the risk out of launching a new service, while still allowing for expansion in the future. For example, Alibaba Cloud features a load balancer that can use shared resources, but also switch to guaranteed performance instances when required.

Cloud computing providers also make it easy to set up and deploy both ready-made and custom builds of virtual machines using a variety of operating systems. You can spin up a new instance and have it running in a matter of minutes. Virtual servers don't require any management and are able to take advantage of a huge infrastructure with servers located globally means that people can access your site from around the world without having to worry about latency issues. Their distributed nature means that there isn't a single point of failure, making them extremely reliable with an uptime of virtually 100%. Backup and recovery are also baked into the service, so you don't need to worry about data loss. There's no need for IT administrators here!

In this post we're going to take a look at 3 of the big providers - AWS, Alibaba Cloud and Digital Ocean - and compare them using the following criteria:

• Services offered
• Pricing
• Help & Support

All three services have a very similar offering, but do it in slightly different ways. Hopefully this post will help you decide which one is the right fit for you.

Meet The Competitors

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is the big daddy of cloud computing. Launched in 2006, it now has an impressively vast array of services on offer and is the clear leader in the field. When you first log into AWS, you get the familiar feel Amazon's website - it's almost as if you're just buying something else from their store. Initially, the sheer number of options can be quite overwhelming.

Alibaba are often referred to as the 'Chinese Amazon'. They launched Alibaba Cloud in 2009 as a direct competitor to AWS, with a focus on Asian markets. It has grown significantly since then and is now the largest cloud provider in China. In 2017 they were named the official cloud services provider of the Olympics and this year they received the MySQL Corporate Contributor Award in recognition of their contributions to open source. Alibaba Cloud are really ramping up their offering in 2018, and recently made a commitment to invest $15 billion over the next 3 years into their already impressive cloud computing service. When you log into Alibaba Cloud, you notice that it has a modern and professional feel to it. They also offer a mind-boggling number of options that can seem a bit daunting at first.

Digital Ocean started life in 2012 with the aim of making it easy for developers to build applications in the cloud. My first impressions of their site was that it has a clean look and user-friendly design. They also use the concept of 'Droplets' that are virtual machines at various price points. This fits the theme o

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