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Google App Engine vs Heroku 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

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
Heroku
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Heroku is 3.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

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

"Its ability to integrate with most devices helps users who have different or old devices."
"The most valuable features of Google App Engine include the ease of rolling back deployments when failures occur, the ability to track deployment times, and the feature to split traffic between different instances."
"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 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."
"What I appreciate most about Google App Engine is that the deployment is significantly easier compared to a conventional Linux platform."
"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."
"It is simple to use. It is much simpler than AWS. It is also very powerful."
"What I find most valuable about Google App Engine is its support for open-source development."
"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."
"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."
"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."
"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."
"Thanks to Heroku, we don't need to do as much direct management in AWS."
"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."
"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."
 

Cons

"The whitelist and blacklist of APIs can be a deal-breaker due to security concerns, and the deployment process is chaotic."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Data consumption of the device could be improved."
"The documentation and community are lacking for this product."
"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."
"We would like to be notified when something goes wrong in the process. When something is not working, we should get an alert."
"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."
"Heroku should increase its slug size limits."
"Heroku doesn't support Docker images on the CI infrastructure."
 

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."
"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."
"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."
"The tool is free."
"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."
"Its price is very good."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
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 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 database becomes costly. The Docker features are not great. You cannot use any ...
What is your primary use case for Heroku?
We use the solution for web applications and web APIs.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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 Google App Engine vs. Heroku and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.