What Is an Alt Cloud?
A practical definition of alternative cloud providers — and how Alt Cloud evaluates them against three inclusion criteria.
“Alt cloud” is shorthand for infrastructure providers that sit outside the hyperscaler stack — AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. They are not necessarily small or niche. Many are specialized: GPU farms, serverless databases, regional IaaS, observability platforms, or AI inference APIs built for developers who need something more focused than a general-purpose cloud.
What makes a provider “alternative”?
In this directory, “alternative” means developer-facing infrastructure with public accountability. We do not require a provider to compete with every AWS service. We do require evidence that a real product exists and that developers can evaluate it without a sales call.
The three criteria
Every listing is scored against three signals:
- Transparent public pricing — a pricing page you can read without logging in
- Usage-based self-service signup — you can create an account and start using the product yourself
- Public SLA or status page — uptime commitments or a live status dashboard
A service needs at least 2 of 3 to qualify for the main list. Score 3/3 earns a green badge; 2/3 earns yellow and a maintainer review.
Why this bar exists
Hyperscalers set expectations: pricing calculators, instant signup, status pages. Alt clouds that meet the same baseline signals are easier to compare, trust, and adopt. Providers that hide pricing or require enterprise sales are harder to recommend in an open directory.
Where to go next
- Browse the directory by category or search
- Read deeper profile pages for providers with reviewed MDX profiles
- Check the watchlist for services close to qualifying
The README stays the source of truth. Profile pages and this blog add narrative — they do not change inclusion rules.