AWS Isn’t the Only Option

On October 20, much of the online world came to a stop as one of the “record-keepers of the modern Internet” had a technical issue.

A major outage at Amazon‘s (AMZN -1.22%) cloud service, AWS, disrupted a large portion of the internet, taking down apps, websites, and online tools used by millions of people worldwide. The breakdown lasted several hours before services were eventually restored.

A cloud is a way to store data over the internet. In this storage type, apps, systems, files, or programmes run on servers, which are powerful computers housed in data centres owned by companies like Amazon.

AWS, or Amazon Web Services, is a widely used cloud computing platform that provides on-demand IT resources and applications over the internet. Instead of building and managing their own physical infrastructure, AWS enables individuals, businesses, and governments to rent services such as computing power, storage, and databases, allowing them to build and scale applications quickly and cost-effectively.

With AWS hosting applications and computer processes for millions of companies worldwide, its disruption knocked websites, businesses, and people offline, halting many from conducting normal everyday tasks.

Inside the AWS Breakdown

It was the company’s northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1 that was responsible for the recent internet meltdown. It wasn’t the first time either; in fact, this is the third time in five years that AWS’s oldest and largest site suffered outages.

The problem arose from the Domain Name System, or DNS, which translates website names to IP addresses that computers use to connect to servers. As a result of this issue, browsers and other applications couldn’t find the correct address for the DynamoDB API and thus couldn’t connect.

DynamoDB is a cloud database service used to store critical information such as customer data. On Monday, customers were unable to access their DynamoDB data.

“We identified the trigger of the event as DNS resolution issues for the regional DynamoDB service endpoints,” states the AWS health dashboard.

The outage caused global turmoil, with thousands of sites affected, including Reddit, Perplexity, Canva, Canvas, WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, and many more.

In fact, Amazon’s own services, including its shopping website, Amazon.com, Amazon Flex, Prime Video, Ring doorbells, and Alexa, were also affected.

Undoubtedly, AWS remains the undisputed leader in the global cloud market. Yet the recent outage raised an important question: should the internet rely so heavily on a single provider’s infrastructure? That’s where other players in the cloud ecosystem come into focus.

AWS attributed the incident to DNS resolution issues for the regional DynamoDB endpoints in US-EAST-1; mitigations were in place by early morning, with some backlogs persisting later in the day. A post-event summary is expected.

Top AWS Alternatives for Cloud Infrastructure

AWS is the world’s largest cloud provider, accounting for about a third of the market.

This service actually accounts for a nice chunk of Amazon’s revenue. During Q2 of 2025, the company reported $19.2 billion in operating income, of which AWS was responsible for $10.2 bln. Its cloud segment’s sales also increased 17.5% YoY to $30.9 billion.
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In this quarter, it actually signed new AWS agreements with major corporations such as PepsiCo (PEP +0.57%), Airbnb (ABNB +0.68%), Peloton (PTON +2.33%), GitLab (GTLB +0.82%), SK Telecom (SKM +0.05%), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD +4.02%), FICO (FICO +0.24%), and more.

AWS also announced general availability of AWS Transform to cut down mainframe modernization timelines and operating costs, AI agents and tools in AWS Marketplace, and general availability of Amazon EC2 instances powered by NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchips.

The $2.3 trillion market cap Amazon, whose shares are trading at $220.44, up about 1.2% YTD and 9% off its $242.52 peak from February this year, is constantly improving and expanding, and is simply the leader in cloud storage.

But while AWS is the gold standard in scalability, global data centers, and service breadth, it isn’t infallible, as we saw with the latest outage. So, here are the best alternatives to AWS to make sure your business is always online and serving customers.

1. Microsoft (MSFT +1.37%): Microsoft Azure

Tech giant Microsoft holds the second position in the cloud market, with a share of about 22%. Its public cloud computing platform, Microsoft Azure, provides a broad range of services, including compute, analytics, storage, and networking.

The Azure cloud platform offers a range of tools compatible with open source technologies, providing users the flexibility to use the tools and technologies they prefer. The Azure service is available on a pay-as-you-go basis, which means subscribers pay for specific resources and services that they use each month.

Microsoft Azure has a vast network of global data centers that ensure high availability and reliability. To utilize Microsoft’s cloud services, users can go to the Azure portal and access them all there, along with any third-party software, to create cloud-based resources like databases.

Hosting databases is one of the most common use cases of Microsoft Azure. Running VMs or containers in the Microsoft cloud is yet another one. The platform is further used for backup and disaster recovery, development, hosting, and testing applications. It also offers various ML tools for businesses to build, deploy, and train ML models, while services like Azure IoT Hub and Azure Stream Analytics help in connecting, monitoring, and managing IoT devices.

Microsoft Cloud further offers deep integration with Microsoft 365, Windows Server, and enterprise IT environments through identity synchronization, unified administration, and seamless application workflows. It also offers strong hybrid cloud capabilities with Azure Arc.

But while compatible with both Windows and Linux, Azure can be pretty expensive, especially for small-scale enterprises.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2025, Microsoft reported total revenue of $76.4B. Microsoft Cloud revenue was $46.7B (+27% YoY). The company doesn’t break out Azure revenue in dollars; Azure and other cloud services grew 39% YoY.

According to its CEO, Satya Nadella, cloud, along with AI, “is the driving force of business transformation across every industry and sector.” He noted a 34% growth in Microsoft’s cloud revenue this year, coming in at $75 billion, “driven by growth across all workloads.”

Microsoft’s market cap is about $2.8T based on current trading. Microsoft’s shares are up over 22.8% this year as they trade at $517.66, a mere 6.8% off the $555.45 peak that MSFT climbed in July this year. It has an EPS (TTM) of 13.64 and a P/E (TTM) of 37.95. The dividend yield paid to shareholders is 0.70%.

2. Alphabet (GOOG -0.77%): Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is known for its wide variety of products and services, ranging from ads, Search, Chrome, Android, Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Waymo, Verily, and Google Fiber to tools like Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Meet.

In addition to it all, it provides enterprise-ready cloud services through Google Cloud Platform, which gives access to solutions like cybersecurity, databases, analytics, AI infrastructure, Vertex AI, and Duet AI for Google Cloud.

The Google Cloud Platform ranks 3rd in the cloud market, capturing a ~12% market share.

It offers a wide range of services, including compute, big data, storage, networking, and management at competitive pricing to cater to the diverse needs of organizations to build and run their applications.

GCP’s high-performance computing and high-speed response times enable effective management of complex workloads thanks to its VM-based compute engine that provides powerful computing capabilities.

With its global network of data centers, GCP enables applications to be accessed from anywhere in the world and allows businesses to have multi-region redundancy.

When it comes to security measures, the company offers an Identity and Access Management (IAM) to establish granular access controls, a Key Management Service (KMS) to use and manage encryption keys to protect its sensitive data, and a Security Command Center (SCC) to monitor and manage security threats.

The platform supports Windows and Linux, offering tools that empower businesses to leverage machine learning capabilities and deploy scalable infrastructure.

Google Cloud’s revenue surged 32% in Q2 2025 to $13.6 billion, while its total revenue was $96.4 billion across businesses. This jump was led by progress in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across its core products, AI Infrastructure, and Gen AI Solutions.

Talking about the “strong growth” in Cloud revenues, backlog, and profitability, CEO Sundar Pichai said, its annual revenue run-rate is now north of $50 billion. He added:

“With this strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services, we are increasing our investment in capital expenditures in 2025 to approximately $85 billion and are excited by the opportunity ahead.”

Alphabet shares recently traded around $252, implying a market cap near $2.1T; results showed Google Cloud revenue up 32% to $13.6B in Q2 2025. . It has an EPS (TTM) of 9.39 and a P/E (TTM) of 26.67. The dividend yield paid is 0.34%.

3. Oracle (ORCL +2.43%): Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

While having less than 5% cloud market share, Oracle is working on increasing its impact through aggressive price-performance offerings, partnerships with software vendors, and the expansion of its AI-integrated cloud services.

Oracle offers integrated suites of applications. Its hardware business provides infrastructure technologies, including servers, storage, operating systems, virtualization, management, and related software. Meanwhile, its services business helps maximize performance in company technologies.

Then there’s Oracle Cloud business, which offers cloud services, cloud license, and on-premise license offerings at attractive pricing. Optimized for databases, ERP, and enterprise workloads, Oracle Cloud provides a scalable and secure platform designed to support mission-critical applications.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers a comprehensive suite of cloud computing solutions through a globally managed network of independent data centers. By offering Data as a Service (DaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Oracle enables users to build, deploy, and integrate cloud-based applications.

The platform supports a diverse range of open-source technologies, including Kubernetes, Spark, Hadoop, Kafka, MySQL, and Terraform, along with frameworks, programming languages, databases, tools, and open standards like SQL, HTML5, and REST.

Recently, the company introduced a new Cloud Infrastructure service called the ‘Oracle AI Database’ to allow its customers to use their preferred Large Language Model (LLM), such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok, directly on top of the Oracle Database to access and analyze the existing database data with ease. The company said:

“This revolutionary new cloud service enables the tens of thousands of our database customers to instantly unlock the value in their data by making it easily accessible to the most advanced AI reasoning models.”

In the fiscal year 2025, Oracle’s total revenue was $57.4 billion, of which Cloud services and license support accounted for a massive $44 billion.

“Oracle is well on its way to being not only the world’s largest cloud application company—but also one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure companies,” said the then CEO, Safra Catz, at the time. Meanwhile, CTO Larry Ellison noted the company’s 23 MultiCloud datacenters that are already live, with 47 more being built. “OCI revenue growth rates are skyrocketing—so is demand,” he said.

In September, Oracle reported its fiscal 2026 Q1 results, showing a 28% increase in cloud revenue to $7.2 billion, which helped total revenues jump by 12% to $14.9 billion.

The company’s MultiCloud database revenue from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft grew at a whopping rate of 1,529%. Ellison expects it to grow substantially further as Oracle brings its total data centers to 71.

The shares of $784.3 bln market cap Oracle, as of writing, are trading at $275.15, up 65.12% YTD and down 20.2% from $345.72 ATH made last month. It has an EPS (TTM) of 4.32 and a P/E (TTM) of 63.68. The dividend yield is 0.73%.

4. IBM (IBM +0.27%): IBM Cloud

Much like Oracle, IBM accounts for a meager 2% market share, but as AI mania continues to grow, the company’s focus on AI-driven cloud solutions also grows.

International Business Machines Corporation is a provider of on-premises and cloud-based server and storage solutions. At the same time, it helps its clients realize their digital and AI transformations across data, applications, and environments in which they operate.

IBM Cloud is a robust enterprise-grade cloud platform with strong features for AI. The focus at IBM is on offering a compliant, highly resilient, and secure cloud. While it can be expensive, IBM offers a wide variety of customizable options, robust AI tools like Watsonx, strong security, and high-level support, making it worthwhile for enterprise-level projects.

It also supports integration with Red Hat OpenShift for hybrid deployments. The support for Red Hat OpenShift and through services like IBM Cloud Satellite also allows the deployment of containers and workloads anywhere.

Moreover, IBM Cloud is globally deployed with data centres and multizone regions across various geographies, enabling local deployment with global scalability. Users also get to choose virtual machines, containers, bare-metal servers, and serverless options.

In Q2 of 2025, IBM’s revenue came in at $17 billion, which includes $7.4 billion from software and $4.1 billion from the infrastructure segment. As part of the software segment, Hybrid Cloud (Red Hat) and automation surged 16% while data was up just 9%. Meanwhile, the hybrid infrastructure jumped by 21%.

“The innovation we are bringing to market across the portfolio continues to resonate with clients as they scale their AI adoption and investments,” said CFO James Kavanaugh. Meanwhile, CEO Arvind Krishna highlighted the company being “highly differentiated in the market because of our deep innovation and domain expertise, both crucial in helping clients deploy and scale AI.”

Currently, IBM shares with a $262.7 billion market cap are trading around $282, up 28.3% YTD and down 6.3% from the $301 ATH hit just this month. It has an EPS (TTM) of 6.21 and a P/E (TTM) of 45.39. The dividend yield paid is 2.38%.

5. Alibaba (BABA -3.78%): Alibaba Cloud

The $400 billion market cap Alibaba Group Holding provides technology infrastructure and marketing platforms. Besides China’s retail and wholesale commerce businesses, it serves internationally through Lazada and AliExpress.

Meanwhile, its Cloud segment provides public and hybrid cloud services for both domestic and foreign enterprises. While its global market share stands at around 4%, Alibaba Cloud remains the dominant player in China, where it controls roughly 35% of the market.

Alibaba Cloud has maintained its leading market share by boosting computing power reserves, increasing capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, and offering diverse services to meet clients’ varied training and inference needs.

As the largest cloud provider in Asia, Alibaba Cloud supports not only the company’s own e-commerce ecosystem but also individuals, online businesses, and enterprises across industries. It is often regarded as a more cost-effective alternative to AWS, offering comparable compute and storage capabilities at competitive pricing.

Alibaba Cloud is particularly strong in networking, content delivery, and distributed systems while offering a broad range of enterprise-ready services such as compute, AI/ML, databases, security, and DevOps. Other services offered by the company include block storage, content delivery network (CDN), container registry, GPU-powered servers, and a load balancer.

Recently, the company claimed that its new Aegaeon pooling system has reduced the number of Nvidia GPUs required to serve LLMs by as much as 82%. Aegaeon is an inference-time scheduler that maximizes GPU utilization across many models with unpredictable demand by scheduling small slices of work across a shared pool.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2025, Alibaba reported a revenue of $34.57 billion, with the Cloud Intelligence Group accounting for $4.6 billion, an increase of 26% year-over-year. This was driven by the increasing adoption of AI-related products, which maintained triple-digit YoY growth for the eighth straight quarter. This resulted in increased demand for compute, storage, and other public cloud services to support AI adoption.

“Looking ahead, we remain committed to investing in our two strategic pillars of consumption and AI + Cloud to capture historic opportunities and drive long-term growth.”

– CEO Eddie Wu

As of writing, BABA shares are trading at $166.67, up 96.57% YTD and down over 46% from the almost $308 peak from 2020. It has an EPS (TTM) of 8.62 and a P/E (TTM) of 19.33. The dividend yield paid to shareholders is 0.63%.

Final Thoughts

While AWS remains the dominant cloud services provider, offering scale, global reach, and myriad services, it’s not immune to outages, as the recent incident showed. The growing reliance on cloud infrastructure for important workloads means businesses must evaluate and potentially adopt alternative providers.

Platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, IBM Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud offer great alternatives that provide virtual servers, scalable storage, databases, and AI tools, developer APIs, enterprise integration, and multi-region data-center infrastructure.

So, if AWS goes offline, any of these providers could host the same types of applications, websites, databases, enterprise software, AI workloads, or streaming platforms, each with varying degrees of complexity and performance, ensuring you remain online and accessible.