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Amazon EC2 vs Google App Engine 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Compute Service (6th)
Google App Engine
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EC2 is designed for Compute Service and holds a mindshare of 5.4%, down 7.5% compared to last year.
Google App Engine, on the other hand, focuses on PaaS Clouds, holds 2.2% mindshare, up 2.2% since last year.
Compute Service
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

KatlegoMabila - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers customization and flexibility with great support
Scalability depends on whether the client wants to scale up or scale down. It decreases resources based on demand. The great aspect of scalability is the flexibility to allow business success to optimize resource solutions and cost efficiency. Another crucial aspect of scalability is auto-scaling. When you have the opportunity to auto-scale, it can't always be available for everything. If you have chosen to integrate with auto-scaling, it's marvellous and doesn't require additional effort. Auto-scaling gives you the edge by using the capacity you have efficiently, scaling up or down as needed. These flexibilities within the EC2 feature instances of AWS play a crucial role in helping me utilize AWS EC2 Intelligent efficiently.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"EC2 is secure and stable, and we have no complaints about it on AWS."
"The tool's performance, reliability, security and flexibility are good. We can use it remotely. The autoscaling functionality of EC2 is quite good. I appreciate the DevOps suite for tracking development tasks. This functionality is important for pure software development."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are ease of use and the services offered."
"Amazon EC2's most valuable feature I have heard from clients is easy provisioning. Provisioning is very quick and easy."
"We don't have to worry about scalability issues or maintenance or security. It's all taken care of."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are ease of use and the services offered."
"I use it for NextCloud and for developer purposes."
"The greatest benefit of Amazon EC2 is its versatility, including the diverse range of servers available and the ability to connect to various resources."
"I've found that all of the features are valuable, especially the shared drive and the ability for multiple people to use their documents at the same time."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward, considering that there is good documentation explaining the implementation part of it."
"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 valuable about Google App Engine is its support for open-source development."
"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."
"The initial setup is okay. It's not too complex. Deployment took about one day."
"The customer service is excellent and very responsive."
 

Cons

"Regional acceleration could improve. If I am hosting a website and I want the experience to be faster they should have this feature to allow for increased speeds."
"The initial deployment was complex."
"They should fix the key pair name functionality and provide the ability to assign multiple key pair names to an EC2 instance. It is a key pair feature, and it provides you the ability to actually log into the server. It is basically like a password. In terms of new features, it should have the ability to increase and decrease the instance size based on certain times of the day. We should be able to do this without turning off the EC2 instance. Currently, you have to turn it off and then turn it back on. It should also have HTTPS or SSL integration."
"Its price can be reduced."
"I think the pricing needs to be adjusted and better security."
"Amazon EC2 could improve the stability."
"Lacks sufficient tools to help users minimize their costs."
"The scalability could improve."
"Difficult to assess how pricing is managed."
"The interface and IDE, where I write code, could be improved. Unlike other IDEs like Visual Studio, it lacks easy access to available functions."
"There are two versions of Google App Engine: flexible and standard versions. I think they can improve by having only one version."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"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."
"The documentation and community are lacking for this product."
"There is limited customization because the sandbox environment restricts it."
"The areas of Google App Engine I would to see improved or enhanced in the future include expanding inbuilt support for more programming languages than the current limited options such as Python, Go, and Node, ideally adding support for languages such as Java."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has helped to reduce costs with infrastructure."
"The use of Amazon EC2 does not incur any licensing fees."
"We are paying about $1,500 a month for one of the services."
"It's competitive but can vary based on instance types and usage patterns."
"For our usage, the cost is approximately $20,000 to $23,000 per month."
"The license fee for Amazon EC2 is higher than its competitors."
"Pricing appears to be cheap, however, it is extremely difficult in calculating what something will cost."
"The solution has different pricing models, and its cost differs when you purchase it for one year or three years."
"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."
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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
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
12%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
The main thing that needs improvement is the cost. Other than that, there is nothing that needs improvement.
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's pricing seemed reasonable to my employer. However, I cannot make comparisons as I don't have experience with other managed services.
What needs improvement with Google App Engine?
While integrating Google App Engine with other services, I don't recall any specific challenges. The main drawback with Google App Engine's standard environment was its restrictions. We could not w...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
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