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Cloud Foundry vs Google App Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
21st
Average Rating
5.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google App Engine
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Cloud Foundry is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Bittrich - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick to deploy but being deprecated by IBM and should be merged with Kubernetes
We enjoy the fast deployment. Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the developer or administrator. The autoscaling is great. It is just a switch that needs to be turned on, and autoscaling starts working. At this moment, you begin to see different meters about usage that helps you in updating the scaling limits, which help you tune the running instances. Besides this, autoscaling can be scheduled, so in times of low activity, you can have lower limits or increase in advance for special dates. It has good logging. CF has logging events that help identify when a transaction runs and its response time which helps in monitoring execution.
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

"My favorite component of IBM's solution is Node-RED, which greatly shortens the amount of time required to develop, test, and deploy new applications."
"IBM is the only vendor to offer integration with blockchain for smart contract development."
"Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the user."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward, considering that there is good documentation explaining the implementation part of it."
"Google App Engine is highly scalable and can integrate easily with other applications."
"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."
"It is simple to use. It is much simpler than AWS. It is also very powerful."
"The functions and features of Google App Engine that I have found most valuable are that it is serverless, and the learning curve is easy to follow."
"What I appreciate most about Google App Engine is that the deployment is significantly easier compared to a conventional Linux platform."
"The product's setup and deployment phases are easy."
"The auto-scaling feature helped us significantly in our fast-paced environment where the number of users was increasing rapidly."
 

Cons

"After the initial excitement period with Node-RED is over, you crave the need of additional integrations to third-party services."
"In IBM Cloud, the product has been deprecated in favor of Kubernetes, which is a more complicated infrastructure to manage."
"The whitelist and blacklist of APIs can be a deal-breaker due to security concerns, and the deployment process is chaotic."
"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."
"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."
"Currently, we have to use Google CLI and utilize Google App CLI SDKs for deployment. If options were available to enable these SDKs for Terraform and CloudFormation, it would be more helpful for executing one-click deployments."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."
"Difficult to assess how pricing is managed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You are allocated a minimum amount of resources in the free tier. This seems fair and highly scalable, as you pay per usage as per cloud pricing schemes."
"The pricing models should be reworked to the needs of a wider range of companies. Some customers will not be able to afford it until quite a few years into production, even after good PoC results and a successful launch."
"IBM has a free tier and payment option depending on the products selected."
"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."
"If we don't know how to work with the tool, we might have some spikes in price."
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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
26%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
12%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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 retention costs, but overall, I'm not sure how Google App Engine compares to other pr...
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 for more programming languages than the current limited options such as Python, Go...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Grape Up, c-Com, KONE, TITAN, CSAA, Bosch, Allstate, Verizon, West Corp., Telstra
Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloud Foundry vs. Google App Engine and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.