If recent history is any guide, there's no contest for investors trying to choose between Alibaba Group Holding (BABA 4.65%) and CoreWeave (CRWV 1.85%). Both stocks have performed well so far in 2025, but CoreWeave has been a much bigger winner since its IPO in late March.
However, it's unwise to rely solely on past performance to make investment decisions. Which of these two stocks is the better pick to buy right now? Here's how Alibaba and CoreWeave stack up against each other.
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The case for Alibaba
Alibaba operates Taobao and Tmall, two of the largest e-commerce platforms in China. It's a major in international digital commerce as well, with its AliExpress, Daraz, Lazada, and Trendyol platforms. In addition, the company's cloud unit has more than one-third of China's cloud services market, making it the biggest cloud provider in the country.
Some have called Alibaba the "Amazon (AMZN 1.08%) of China." That's not a bad description. Like Amazon, Alibaba has expanded beyond e-commerce and cloud services into other arenas such as healthcare.
With over 1.4 billion people, China has the second-biggest population in the world (lagging slightly behind India). This represents a massive market for Alibaba's e-commerce business. The country's government has also set a goal of being the world's AI leader by 2030. Alibaba will almost certainly play a critical role in China's efforts to achieve that objective.
In the meantime, Alibaba's valuation compares favorably against several U.S. AI leaders. The stock's forward price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 24 is well below the multiples of Amazon, Microsoft (MSFT 0.61%), and Nvidia (NVDA 2.05%).
The case for CoreWeave
CoreWeave has carved out a first-mover advantage by building a cloud platform specifically focused for supporting generative AI. The up-and-coming AI hyperscaler has built an impressive lineup of customers and partners, including internet infrastructure leader Cloudflare (NET 1.02%), Alphabet's (GOOG -1.17%) (GOOGL -1.03%) Google, and French AI pioneer Mistral AI.
Two of CoreWeave's relationships especially stand out. The company has contracts totaling up to $22.4 billion with ChatGPT creator OpenAI. It is also a close partner with Nvidia, which owns nearly 24.3 million shares of CoreWeave.
There's a good reason why CoreWeave's stock has skyrocketed since its IPO earlier this year. The company's business is booming. CoreWeave reported revenue of $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2025, more than quadrupling year over year.
As impressive as this growth is, CoreWeave could only be scratching the surface of its opportunity. Co-founder and CEO Michael Intrator said in the company's Q2 update, "We are scaling rapidly as we look to meet the unprecedented demand for AI." While several companies will benefit from this massive AI tailwind, CoreWeave could be one of the biggest winners.
And the better stock to buy is...
I think both of these stocks will likely deliver solid returns over the next few years. However, I view CoreWeave as the better stock to buy right now.
Is CoreWeave's valuation a concern? Not really. Since the hyperscaler isn't profitable yet, we can't use earnings-based valuation metrics. CoreWeave's shares currently trade at a trailing 12-month price-to-sales ratio of around 18.5. Ordinarily, such a high multiple would be worrisome. But with the company delivering such robust growth, I don't see this valuation as overly problematic.
The biggest risk to CoreWeave, in my opinion, is that the AI boom tapers off. I don't see that happening anytime soon, though. If I'm right, this stock could generate exceptional returns for investors through the rest of the decade.
