Amazon AWS vs Google App Engine vs Heroku comparison

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Amazon AWS

Google App Engine

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon AWS, Google App Engine, and Heroku based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Red Hat and others in PaaS Clouds.

To learn more, read our detailed PaaS Clouds Report (Updated: August 2025).

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PaaS Clouds

August 2025

Helped 867,341 peers since 2012

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 September 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 13.0%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon AWS	13.0%
Google App Engine	2.1%
Heroku	3.4%
Other	81.5%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

HarishMahanta

Sr PeopleSoft Consultant at People Tech

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…

Chandra Shekar Reddy Arrabolu

Associate Projects at Cognizant

Effortless server management and automatic scaling boost productivity

The error logging system in Google App Engine could be enhanced. While there are troubleshooting documents with Google-defined error logs, identifying the exact root cause can be challenging. Often, issues must be escalated through support to product engineering teams who access internal logs for resolution. Increasing the visibility of logging would help users identify issues more easily. Regarding runtimes, the validity period limitations can be problematic. When companies use legacy applications, migrating to new versions requires significant code changes and isn't always a simple lift-and-shift operation. Google App Engine should consider continuing to provide security patches for legacy applications, especially for customers with substantial billing. The manual scaling feature needs improvement, as it isn't available for all runtimes. Adding this capability across all runtimes would be beneficial for controlling instance scaling within specific parameters.

Has a quick development cycle and continuous integration

Cristian-Molina

Senior Developer at Go Coeupas

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.

More Google App Engine pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Elasticity has always been AWS's mandate. The flexibility of their platform from a systems perspective lives up to its claims."

"The most important feature is deploying our production in multi-data regions around the world."

"Easy to access and secure, two important features."

"I am impressed with the solution's EC2 EKS."

"The main reason why we use EC2 is because we are not dependent on maintaining the hardware inside our premises. Also, we have full control over the infrastructure, and we can modify it as per our own requirements."

"Using AWS is really helpful for saving costs."

"For testing, it is a cheap alternative to having to build your own labs."

"I like AWS for its scalability, reliability, and availability, and it's much more mature and user-friendly compared to some other cloud providers. The learning curve and time for deployment are also shorter."

More Amazon AWS pros

"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward, considering that there is good documentation explaining the implementation part of it."

"Its ability to integrate with most devices helps users who have different or old devices."

"The features of Google App Engine that I have found most valuable for my use cases include its easy deployment process, where there is minimal configuration required, allowing a few details in a configuration file before pushing it to Google App Engine, which auto-scales and requires less maintenance with no downtime over three years."

"The customer service is excellent and very responsive."

"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."

"The zero infrastructure management is valuable, allowing me to focus on the code rather than the service."

"The seamless integration of Google App Engine with other Google Cloud services has enhanced my application capabilities by allowing us to trigger Cloud Jobs from App Engine and some cloud functions, as handling messages through Pub/Sub."

"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."

"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."

"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."

"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."

"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."

"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."

"The product is stable."

More Heroku pros

Cons

"A person with no AWS experience might find it overwhelming at first."

"The feedback we are getting from our customers, especially here in Turkey where the exchange rate fluctuates regularly, is that the solution is quite expensive."

"I think that the interface could be improved."

"One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots."

"There is room for improvement in cost. Everyone complains about AWS being expensive. The initial cost starts small but can skyrocket unexpectedly."

"Faster API response times and an improved console experience would be better. Enhanced performance across APIs and the console would streamline our workflows."

"The customization could improve. However, it depends on the customization needed."

"I generally don't like the user experience of Amazon. It's not the best."

More Amazon AWS cons

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The support for the Indian region is not as good as compared to the support that is offered to the regions in Europe."

"One drawback is that the app needs to be written to be compatible with Google App Engine, making it not cloud agnostic, hindering straightforward migration to other platforms such as AWS."

"I would like a simpler deployment tool on laptops. It is a bit complicated at the moment. We know how to do it, but it could be easier to deploy it on laptops."

"Difficult to assess how pricing is managed."

"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 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."

"I think there's still a lot that can be done with Google Meet and the video conferencing part of it. It could be more dynamic in terms of what can be done with it."

More Google App Engine cons

"Heroku had an authentication problem a few months ago, but they solved it."

"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."

"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."

"Heroku doesn't support Docker images on the CI infrastructure."

"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."

"We would like to be notified when something goes wrong in the process. When something is not working, we should get an alert."

More Heroku cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is fair compared to competitors."

"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%."

"In comparison to Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, the database offered by Amazon AWS is relatively expensive. However, the database also offers rich features."

"For our infrastructure, the cost is approximately $25 per device, and you have to include the other tools that we have in the cloud, for a total of approximately $200,000 per year."

"When I first started using the solution I used a free trial, and then we upgraded to a pay-as-you-go subscription. We have an allocated budget of $50."

"The pricing of Amazon is higher than that of SalesForce."

"Some customers will provide their own license and others will purchase it directly from AWS."

"The price can be better."

More Amazon AWS pricing and cost advice

"We pay the license yearly. It's about $6 a month, which is $72 a year per person, so it's about $500."

"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."

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."

"Its price is very good."

"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."

"The tool is free."

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	131
Midsize Enterprise	47
Large Enterprise	112

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderfu...

How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?

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?

Google App Engine is affordable compared to other available platforms. The pricing structure is reasonable and not ov...

What needs improvement with Google App Engine?

The error logging system in Google App Engine could be enhanced. While there are troubleshooting documents with Googl...

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.

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Amazon AWS

Comparisons

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon AWS

Compared 10% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon AWS

Compared 9% of the time

SAP Cloud Platform vs Amazon AWS

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon AWS Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Google App Engine

Compared 30% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google App Engine

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon Lightsail vs Google App Engine

Compared 5% of the time

Acquia Cloud vs Google App Engine

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon EC2 vs Google App Engine

Compared 5% of the time

More Google App Engine Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Heroku

Compared 18% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Heroku

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Fargate vs Heroku

Compared 10% of the time

Render vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Heroku

Compared 6% of the time

More Heroku Competitors

Product Reports

Download Amazon AWS product report

Amazon AWS

September 2025

Download Google App Engine product report

Google App Engine

September 2025

Download Heroku product report

September 2025

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS

No data available

Overview

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an adopted cloud platform that offers more than 200 fully featured services from data centers located across the globe. This is a scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that is utilized by thousands of businesses of different sizes around the world. The product offers a wide variety of solutions for its customers, which allows them to launch applications regardless of their industry.

The most common use cases for AWS are:

Application hosting: Clients can take advantage of on-demand infrastructure to power their applications. The product supports multiple types of apps, varying from hosted internal applications to software as a service (SaaS) offerings.
Websites: With AWS, clients can satisfy their web hosting needs through a scalable platform for their websites.
Backup and storage: AWS offers reliable data storage services, which allow clients to store their data and build dependable backups for all of their valuable information.
Enterprise IT: The product allows companies to host internal- or external-facing IT applications in a highly secure environment.
Content delivery: Users who want to distribute content to end users worldwide can do so quickly and easily through the high data transfer speeds of this solution.
Databases: AWS offers a variety of database solutions, which include hosted enterprise database software as well as non-relational database solutions.

Amazon AWS supports a global cloud infrastructure with AWS Region and Availability Zone models, which contribute to the high availability of enterprise applications running on the solution. Amazon AWS has an extensive array of products that serve different purposes, including:

Analytics
Application integration
Blockchain
Business applications
Cloud financial management
Compute
Contact center
Containers
Database
Developer tools
End-user computing
Front-end web and mobile
Games
Internet of Things (IoT)
Machine learning
Management and governance
Quantum technologies
Robotics
Satellite
Security, identity and compliance, and others

The products and services that Amazon AWS delivers to these sectors provide a large computing capacity which is quicker and cheaper compared to building a physical server farm. Among the most popular services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, also known as "EC2," and Amazon Simple Storage Service, also known as "S3."

Amazon AWS Features

The wide array of products that Amazon AWS offers consist of different functions that utilize cloud computing across different sectors. The features of this solution can be categorized in the following ways:

Data and relationship management: With Amazon AWS, companies can manage multiple hierarchies of directory data, they can define attributes for objects and relationships, set custom inheritance rules for directories, and create multiple schemas.
Schema management: This group of features allows users to extend their directory schema according to their needs. They can extend it through multiple applications that share a single directory while avoiding duplication of data.
Fully managed infrastructure: This feature decreases time and costs for administrative tasks for companies regarding scaling infrastructure and managing servers.
Searching feature: The Cloud Directory feature of AWS offers built-in search capabilities which can cover sets of highly connected data and eliminate the need of creating nested queries.
Built-in data encryption: Users can benefit from high levels of protection of their data with AWS's products. The data in the cloud is automatically encrypted at rest and in transit through 256-bit encryption keys, managed by AWS Key Management Service (KMS).
Object policies: This feature allows Amazon AWS users to organize objects in different hierarchies by providing a framework for applications to evaluate policy assignments.

Amazon AWS Benefits

This product delivers various benefits across all industries that utilize its services. The greatest advantages of using Amazon AWS include:

High product functionality is supported by machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, data lakes, and analytics.
The solution has a high level of security, which is backed by a deep set ofmore than 100 cloud security tools.
Amazon AWS has an easy-to-use interface that makes it possible for clients to host applications.
The product is very flexible in terms of which operating system, programming language, web app platform, and database clients can use.
AWS is a scalable and highly secure global computing infrastructure, supported by the reliability of Amazon.com.
Clients can utilize the Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing tools to personally scale up or down applications, depending on their demand.
Users can choose from an array of payment options, including paying for only the services they need, as well as a free trial to select the ones most useful for them.

Reviews from Real Users

Greg G., a chief executive officer at a tech services company, ranks Amazon AWS highly, as he states that the solution is flexible, scales well, and offers good stability.

A technology manager technology at a computer software company values Amazon AWS because it is extremely cost-efficient, easy to upgrade and expand storage with greatly improved interfaces.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Google App Engine is a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) provider that equips web application developers with all the resources and tools that they need to develop, test, and run their applications on Google's infrastructure. Everything is built into the kit, so with one download of the SDK, you'll be well on your way to first-rate apps.

Google

Established in 2007, Heroku is a cloud application platform providing a streamlined, efficient place for web app developers to create and deploy their applications. Heroku is designed to maximize developer productivity. With the entire web application development process available on the Herokucloud, creating and rolling out web apps has been made more efficient, convenient, and cost-effective than ever before.