Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick Fly.io if your workload is apps that need to be close to users everywhere and its included egress fits your traffic shape; pick Alibaba Cloud if you need reaching apac users at apac prices. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| Fly.io | Alibaba Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Global VM platform | Full cloud (ECS) |
| Free tier | Small allowances on paid plan | Trial credits |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Pay-as-you-go from ~$2/mo per VM | ECS from ~$2.50/mo promo |
| Egress | Free tier then billed | Metered by region |
| Cold start | ~300ms (Firecracker VMs) | N/A |
| Regions | 30+ regions | Strong APAC + global |
| Best for | Apps that need to be close to users everywhere | Reaching APAC users at APAC prices |
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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog