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Google App Engine vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry 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
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 9.2%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google App Engine2.1%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry9.2%
Other88.7%
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.
Stephen  Hack - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, simple to sign-in, but lacking graphical interface
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is used as a cloud platform Pivotal Cloud Foundry has helped our organization by the way we've set it up, it's easy to sign in, bind services, push services, and create YAML files. The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Seurity features - unauthorized individuals are unable to access certain applications."
"What I appreciate most about Google App Engine is that the deployment is significantly easier compared to a conventional Linux platform."
"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 auto-scaling feature helped us significantly in our fast-paced environment where the number of users was increasing rapidly."
"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."
"The product's setup and deployment phases are easy."
"The WhatApp feature is the most valuable."
"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the deployment is easier."
"The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line interface has the ability to push instances to the cloud easily."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
 

Cons

"The documentation and community are lacking for this product."
"Data consumption of the device could be improved."
"There is limited customization because the sandbox environment restricts it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology it is a bit complex."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve the documentation. They are good, but they could improve more. Additionally, it would be beneficial if there were more use case examples."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"It should offer more security features."
"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
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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
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Insurance Company
6%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
 

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?
Google App Engine is affordable compared to other available platforms. The pricing structure is reasonable and not overrated.
What needs improvement with Google App Engine?
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...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What do you like most about Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I would say it is around a nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. Just short of Oracle. It's sort of Oracle cloud.
 

Also Known As

No data available
PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Google App Engine vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.