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Amazon AWS vs Google App Engine vs Heroku comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 12.4%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 3.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

HarishMahanta - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable cloud service enhances ERP management with advanced security features
I use Amazon AWS for ERP implementation. My responsibility is to integrate our application into the AWS cloud and provide AI solutions to the infrastructure AWS is stable and has provided a reliable infrastructure for my organization. AWS offers add-on services such as security and automated…
OmkarPatil - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifies app development process for businesses
The product simplifies app development processes since once the local development is completed, my company has a common configuration in place where we can specify the requirements to run an application, after which we need to do a one-click GCP deployment for the entire application. In general, the two offer managed deployment options, so we don't have to worry about deployment. In my company, we just configure the servers and check if anything needs to be containerized, after which GCP handles everything for us. A project where Google App Engine scalability was essential was when, recently, my company was involved with Golang to build a web application, after which deploying that application on Google App Engine was really easy. In my company, we also had a Django application in Python, and it was easy to deploy. As my company deals with small-scale projects, the automated scaling feature of Google App Engine is not something we thought about. I wouldn't recommend the product to others unless the potential end users use GCP and have a word with their vendors about their plans. One specific recommendation from me would be that the product's potential uses should stick with a particular vendor. If someone wants a product that is easy to deploy and scalable, then multiple options are available in the market. The product integrates very well with other Google solutions. I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.
Cristian-Molina - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a quick development cycle and continuous integration
The initial setup is straightforward. Heroku integrates well. You only have to push the code, and it automatically deploys the new version. Whether you have permission depends on the application. Currently, I have one application that I deploy myself. I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The technical support is good."
"Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service."
"The most valuable feature is the availability, as we work in different availability zones."
"The solution has very good Lambda functions within AWS."
"Great scalability."
"We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance."
"The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are the high level of capabilities, cloud-native environment, developer-friendly, intuitive interface, and automation. The solution overall is easy to learn from the resources available."
"The product is nice and stable. Its performance is great."
"What I find most valuable about Google App Engine is its support for open-source development."
"Administering App Engine is simple; it has intuitive UIs and a very scalable app engine."
"Google App Engine's most valuable feature is self-management. You do not have to manage the infrastructure underneath where all the functions are happening, such as load balancing deployment and version management, they are managed by the system itself."
"What I find most beneficial about Google App Engine is that we do not need to manage it since it's a fully managed serverless platform, allowing us to spend more time on development rather than managing and maintaining configurations."
"I've noticed measurable benefits and return on investment by choosing Google App Engine."
"The solution is serverless, so we don't have to operate it."
"What I appreciate most about Google App Engine is that the deployment is significantly easier compared to a conventional Linux platform."
"Seurity features - unauthorized individuals are unable to access certain applications."
"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."
"Thanks to Heroku, we don't need to do as much direct management in AWS."
"It is easy to deploy applications, and we don't need to bother about software updates on the server. We don't need to bother about machines, servers, and hardware. We only need to care about the system and functionality that we need or want to develop. They take care of everything else. It provides high availability. It is a pretty good solution that provides everything that we need. It has everything that we need to run our applications. We have many different applications, and we generate three million bills for a company in Brazil. We see more than a billion requests per day in another application. Everything works just fine, and it is very good."
"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."
"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."
"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."
"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."
"The product is stable."
 

Cons

"We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity."
"The problem with AWS is you have to keep up with the technology. If you don't stay up to date with the technology and its latest changes then you won't know what to use in your infrastructure."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"More complete and specific training for many of the technologies, specifically with Python Django and the CMS (Mezzanine)."
"I'd like the solution to be more plug-and-play."
"There was some new learning in terms of IOPS on the EBS storage. The concept of burstable IOPS was new and we did have a few outages when we ran out of IOPS."
"Some services that are not used often have poor quality and need to be improved."
"We would appreciate it if the product was cheaper."
"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."
"Google Cloud support for Google App Engine is very poor, with unresponsive and unaware agents. It took them almost a month to inform me that SSH is not possible with private instances."
"The only concern is that there is a number of the offerings which are built on their own proprietary technologies. With some of the offerings in Google Cloud, it's difficult to have a path to migrate to other cloud providers."
"I am limited to sending a photo to five people. I want to be able to send a photo to many people, not just five."
"There are two versions of Google App Engine: flexible and standard versions. I think they can improve by having only one version."
"Difficult to assess how pricing is managed."
"The main drawback with Google App Engine's standard environment was its restrictions. We could not work with file systems, run shell scripts from the environment, or use WebSockets."
"The areas of Google App Engine that I would to improve or enhance include its allowance for complete end-to-end deployment and scalability; however, it is manageable only for a few languages."
"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."
"They could flesh out some of their analytics a little more."
"I think this solution would be improved if free demos were available indefinitely."
"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."
"The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly."
"I improved the application performance by monitoring and adjusting the cleaner configuration to help set better lightweight limits on containers that run the app instances."
"We don't find the pipelines intuitive. The user experience could be better. Having to set up multiple apps, then a pipeline, seems like an overkill on the amount of work to do."
"The tool's configuration is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is comparable if you add in the price structure to an on-prem solution."
"It is much more expensive than any other cloud provider."
"If you can plan capacity for one or three years, you can use the upfront payment option which allows you to save up to 50%."
"It's a pay-per-use model."
"We are on an annual subscription for Amazon AWS."
"The price tends to be higher, but that is a usual case when prioritizing reliable backup solutions for servers and other infrastructure."
"​AWS is much too expensive compared to current on-premises solution for this type of work."
"The prices are somewhat on the higher side. It would help if they can bring it down, especially for the sporting segment and for on-demand instances."
"If we don't know how to work with the tool, we might have some spikes in price."
"I would like to have more free application with it. Some of the applications, I am paying more for them. I think that they must be free."
"We pay the license yearly. It's about $6 a month, which is $72 a year per person, so it's about $500."
"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."
"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."
"The tool is free."
"Its price is very good."
"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
11%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expand...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the fle...
What do you like most about Google App Engine?
The product's setup and deployment phases are easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google App Engine?
I haven't been involved on the pricing side, so I'm not exactly aware of the costs, although we did analyze log reten...
What needs improvement with Google App Engine?
The areas of Google App Engine I would to see improved or enhanced in the future include expanding inbuilt support fo...
What do you like most about Heroku?
I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards.
What needs improvement with Heroku?
I don't like that the web server crashes every day, every 24 hours. The pricing could be improved because scaling the...
What is your primary use case for Heroku?
We use the solution for web applications and web APIs.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
Facebook, UrbanDictionary, Code for America, Mailchimp, Rapportive, GitHub, TED, and Lyft.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Red Hat and others in PaaS Clouds. Updated: June 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.