Alibaba Cloud (阿里云, Aliyun) is the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group and one of the main cloud providers in China. Foreign companies use it to host websites, apps and mini program back ends on servers in mainland China, close to their Chinese users. A website served from those servers needs an ICP filing first. Its China site is aliyun.com.
What Alibaba Cloud offers
Alibaba Cloud covers the building blocks of a website or an application: virtual servers (Elastic Compute Service, or ECS), storage, databases, networking, content delivery (CDN), security and AI services. It has regions across mainland China, such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and in Hong Kong.
It runs two sites with separate accounts: aliyun.com for the Chinese market, and alibabacloud.com for international customers. The difference matters for a foreign company, because the ICP filing for a mainland server is handled through an account on the China site.
Who uses Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud serves large companies with complex needs, as well as small businesses and developers. Among Chinese providers, it stood out in the market figures of recent years: in Canalys figures for the second quarter of 2022, it ranked first in mainland China with 34% of spending on cloud infrastructure services, ahead of Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Our comparison of cloud hosting providers in China puts these figures in context.
How a foreign company hosts a website on Alibaba Cloud in China
The steps below assume you have a company registered in mainland China. Our ICP license and China hosting consulting covers the case where you do not, and helps you choose between a mainland server and Hong Kong.
1. Open an account and buy a server in a mainland region
Register an account on the Alibaba Cloud China site, then buy ECS instances in a mainland China region. Choose the region closest to your users: the region cannot be changed once the instance is created.
2. Complete the ICP filing
A domain that resolves to servers in mainland China, CDN nodes included, needs an ICP filing before it serves visitors, or an ICP license for commercial internet information services. The applicant is an entity registered in mainland China, and the file goes through the hosting provider, here Alibaba Cloud, before the authorities review it. A foreign company files through its Chinese subsidiary or branch. Our guide to the ICP license in China explains which permit fits your business model. The PSB filing with the public security bureau follows once the site is online.
3. Point your domain to the server
Once the filing is approved, add your domain in Alibaba Cloud DNS and point it to the public IP address of your ECS instance. To serve visitors across China faster, you can add Alibaba Cloud CDN, whose node distribution covers the mainland; the CDN domain needs the same ICP filing.
4. Deploy and test your website
Finally, deploy your website on the ECS instance, connect it to the domain, and test it from several cities in China. Without an ICP filing, a website on a mainland server is not accessible in mainland China.
Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud or Hong Kong?
Alibaba Cloud has the widest range of products among Chinese providers. Tencent Cloud, from the group that owns WeChat, is the other common choice, especially for gaming, video and WeChat projects. The ICP rules are the same with both. A server in Hong Kong needs no ICP filing, but your pages then cross the border to reach visitors in mainland China, so their speed has to be tested from there. Our guide on how to host a website in China compares the two options.
How QPSoftware can help
From Shanghai, QPSoftware helps foreign companies choose between a mainland server and Hong Kong, prepare the ICP and PSB filings with their hosting provider, and set up servers, CDN and deployment. If you want to make your website work in China, our team starts by checking how your site loads from China today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a foreign company host a website on Alibaba Cloud in China?
Yes, through an entity registered in mainland China. Anyone can open an Alibaba Cloud account and buy a server in a mainland region, but the website on it needs an ICP filing, and the applicant must be a company registered in China, such as a subsidiary or a branch. Without that filing, a website on a mainland server is not accessible in mainland China.
Is Alibaba Cloud available in English?
Partly. The international site, alibabacloud.com, and its documentation are in English. The China site, aliyun.com, where mainland servers and the ICP filing are usually managed, is mainly in Chinese, and the filing system is in Chinese only. A foreign company needs someone who reads Chinese, on its team or at its agency, to complete the filing.
How does Alibaba Cloud differ from Tencent Cloud?
Both offer servers, storage, databases and CDN in mainland China and Hong Kong, and both handle the ICP filing for their customers. Alibaba Cloud has the widest product range and led the Chinese market in the 2022 figures. Tencent Cloud belongs to the same group as WeChat and is often chosen for gaming, video and WeChat projects. The ICP rules are the same with both.