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Google App Engine vs Google Cloud 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Google App Engine can reduce costs significantly but results vary based on user familiarity and organizational deployment.
Sentiment score
6.3
Organizations gain from Google Cloud's features, achieving faster timelines, reduced costs, and significant time savings of 30-40%.
Once we deployed this same application as part of Google App Engine, the cost drastically reduced to just $120 for the small instance we use for our development.
Operationally, it was efficient for us because we could easily spin up new versions to demonstrate new functionality without modifying the original environment.
Google App Engine offers discounts for high resource utilization, similar to committed use discounts for Compute Engine.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Google App Engine's customer service experiences vary, with responses ranging from efficient support to delays and reliance on documentation.
Sentiment score
6.5
Google Cloud support experiences vary, with some praising responsiveness and others noting delays; overall satisfaction differs widely.
They route us toward the appropriate team handling Google App Engine or other services, so when there is an issue, the respective team connects and provides support.
The technical support was very quick and responsive, with a direct team line available.
Technical support for Google App Engine is efficient and offers a brilliant solution.
I consider them good partners when it comes to support.
We have consulted Google support several times, and we received a quick response.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Google App Engine excels in auto-scaling and seamless integration, though deployment times and flexible instances could improve.
Sentiment score
7.7
Google Cloud's scalability excels with flexible scaling and adaptability, praised for superior performance across diverse sectors, despite cost concerns.
I would rate the scalability as nine out of ten, appreciating its design that does not require much attention to scaling configurations or costs.
Google App Engine scales well in the standard environment, which automatically handles traffic without manual scaling.
Google App Engine is highly scalable and can integrate easily with other applications.
If I had to rate scalability from one to ten, I would rate it a nine as we have never faced any issues with scalability.
This solution is suitable for enterprise-level organizations, particularly in finance and healthcare domains where there is substantial data volume.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Google App Engine is reliable with minor issues, requiring minimal maintenance and offering positive user experiences despite occasional disruptions.
Sentiment score
8.1
Google Cloud is praised for stability and reliability, with minor capacity concerns and some features needing improvement.
I have not experienced any crashing or instability with Google App Engine.
However, large code bases can still cause it to slow down.
I would rate the stability of Google App Engine a perfect 10 out of 10, as it is completely managed by Google.
 

Room For Improvement

Users find Google App Engine limited in customization, costly, lacking support, and needing improved tools, language options, and integration.
Google Cloud needs improvements in user-friendliness, features, integration, documentation, support, pricing, and compatibility to better serve users.
It would be beneficial if Flex services could scale down to zero instances during periods of no traffic.
The pricing is higher compared to alternatives like Kubernetes and Compute Engine.
In the Flex environment, SSH access is not available for private instances.
If the hierarchy or similarities were the same, that would help developers more conveniently migrate from a traditional SQL server to BigQuery.
Providing more hypervisors would be beneficial.
The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages.
 

Setup Cost

Google App Engine offers competitive pricing for low usage, but costs can rise significantly with higher usage and features.
Enterprise users find Google Cloud competitively priced but desire greater cost transparency and additional storage options.
For F1 usage with 256 MB, it is free.
My GCP billing is about 10 lakh INR per month, and Google App Engine contributes only 25,000 to 30,000 INR.
The pricing of Google App Engine largely depends on the features chosen; if we opt for the standard edition, it is less expensive, while the flexible option incurs more costs due to always having an instance running.
As far as I know, it is a little more expensive compared to other cloud options.
 

Valuable Features

Google App Engine offers scalable, serverless deployment with easy integration, supporting multiple languages to enhance productivity and cost-effectiveness.
Google Cloud offers scalability, cost-effectiveness, robust security, and seamless integration, enhancing operations with powerful tools and efficient management.
The solution offers scalability, autoscaling based on user demand, and security, as Google manages all updates and security patches.
Google App Engine offers a cloud-based solution for free, especially for Java, making it a cost-effective option compared to expensive VMs.
I also appreciate the Google App Engine standard environment because it handles traffic scaling without manual intervention.
The most valuable features of Google Cloud for us are the integration with Kubernetes, IAM, Istio integration, and Terraform capabilities.
If customers use different technologies within their environment, GCP cannot offer a full performance analysis covering all the disclosures.
 

Categories and Ranking

Google App Engine
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.1%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud is 5.6%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Chandra Shekar Reddy Arrabolu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Saurav Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration with Kubernetes and flexibility improve our application deployment process
The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages. Our non-technical users find it difficult to access logs. Additionally, the user interface could be more user-friendly and intuitive compared to our previous experience with AWS.
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I have not yet used the real-time logging feature.
What do you like most about Google Cloud?
Google Cloud is perceived as a cost-effective and user-friendly option, especially compared to AWS. The current affordability and ease of use make it suitable for medium-sized companies. While the ...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud?
The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages. Our non-technical users...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?
Our primary use case for Google Cloud ( /products/google-cloud-reviews ) is deploying applications. Our applications are deployed on Google Cloud ( /products/google-cloud-reviews ), and we use it t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.