Business owner at Boers PR + Marketing
Real User
Great cloud source for document sharing
Pros and Cons
  • "Good storage and ease of access."
  • "Uploading documents could be simplified."

What is our primary use case?

My primary use case is for cloud storage but I also use it for sharing documents with people who don't use Office 365. In my case, it's mainly for personal use and less for business. I'm a customer of Google Cloud. 

What is most valuable?

The storage is good and I think it's a good cloud source. I can access information from any client and from any device. It's convenient.

What needs improvement?

There are occasionally things which are inconvenient. For example, uploading pictures or files then requires you to transfer to a different folder. Maybe there's a way to choose where a document is uploaded to and that can be done directly. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Google Cloud for a couple of years. 

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How are customer service and support?

The online documentation is very good and if I need help, I go to wiki and get a decent explanation. I've never been directly in touch with support. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing is paid on a monthly basis and I think the cost is reasonable. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Principal Architect at a real estate/law firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Fantastic scalability, total stability, but technical support needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "I have found almost everything valuable. Most cloud products are moving in this direction, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and security."
  • "Technical support needs help."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for cloud network applications and for building artificial intelligence-based products.

What is most valuable?

I have found almost everything valuable. Most cloud products are moving in this direction, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and security. 

What needs improvement?

Technical support needs help.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Google Cloud for three and half years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When it comes to vendor reliability Google Cloud is extremely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Google Cloud is scalable and we have over one thousand users with plans to increase that number.

How are customer service and support?

Customer service and support needs some work.

How was the initial setup?

Everything was easy and straightforward in the setup process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Compared to Azure Cloud, Google Cloud is more expensive but it is okay.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend Google Cloud they are performing much better than Azure Cloud. I would rate Google Cloud a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Google Cloud
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Google Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Software Integration Engineer at Thales
Real User
Top 5
Highly reliable, scalable, but support documents could be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "Google Cloud is 100 percent stable."
  • "Sometimes the Google documents are difficult to learn from. Amazon has better support material."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using Google Cloud for personal learning and personal interest.

I use the non-SQL Firebase Realtime Database. I install, apply a database, and install my mobile data globally.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Google Cloud for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Google Cloud is 100 percent stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not analyzed the stability of Google Cloud, but for what I use it for it has been good.

How are customer service and support?

Sometimes the Google documents are difficult to learn from. Amazon has better support material.

I rate the support from Google Cloud a three out of five.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have started using the Amazon Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud for comparative reasons. For my use case, Google Cloud was the best choice.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Google Cloud to others.

I rate Google Cloud a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
CTO at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Priced-well, easy to set up, and you can easily use it through a web browser
Pros and Cons
  • "You can just connect and start using it through a browser within a few minutes."
  • "Monitoring and usage reporting could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

I am in the process of migrating from on-premises to the cloud.

We use it for IT infrastructure deployment and management.

What is most valuable?

The best part of Google Cloud is that it is cheaper than the competitors.

It is easy to set up, monitor, and manage.

You can just connect and start using it through a browser within a few minutes.

What needs improvement?

Monitoring and usage reporting could be improved. For example, they don't provide the CPU primary memory usage report. They do provide a CPU usage report, but not the memory. This is something that is critical for people interested in monitoring because if you are burdening the machine then you want the option of providing more RAM.

There is no graph or monitoring in the console; if it is there then I haven't found it, so it is something that takes extra time to figure out.

Google does not provide free support and at the least, email support should be available. I am not asking for free chat or telephone support, but given that we are paying to use the machine, email support should be included.

The alerts are somewhat cryptic and do not say much about what is going on.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Google Cloud for almost three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Google Cloud is a scalable product.

How are customer service and technical support?

The support is bad, and you have to purchase it separately. There is no free support available.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I am currently working with both Google Cloud and AWS. I am in the process of also trying to implement IBM Cloud.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to set up and up the time for provisioning depends on the type of machine that you want to set up. It will not take longer than 15 or 20 minutes if you know how to do it.

What about the implementation team?

We have two or three people in the organization who set up the machines.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The support costs extra, even when it comes to email.

What other advice do I have?

This is a good product, but I wouldn't immediately recommend it because there are a lot of options available. People have to choose based on their requirements and location. There is not much different, so people have to look at particular requirements, cost, and support.

I agree that cost is a factor but support should also be considered because it is needed from time to time, and Google does not provide free support. Given that we are paying for the machine, we should have to pay for costly support in addition to that.

This is a good product but I would like better monitoring, alerting, and reporting.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1002609 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager - SaaS at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
A cloud service that will please more technically-minded users which is making strides with ease-of-use
Pros and Cons
  • "This platform is popular with technical users because of the abilities for customization and fine-tuning performance."
  • "The ease-of-use could be improved for less technical users."

What is our primary use case?

We are using GoogleCloud for hosting a SaaS platform.  

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the product is that it has a very powerful command line.  

What needs improvement?

It is difficult to say what should be improved because, obviously, they have made some major improvements in the organization of how you do things — such as the way you set up a server. Google has made a lot of effort to try and catch up to the competition in the area of ease-of-use because that would have been my one complaint: that you have got to be quite technical to understand some of the ways that things are done. Azure and Heroku are number one in ease-of-use and they make it very easy. Google has done a lot of work to alleviate that objection and to catch up with Heroku and Azure. But the people that have the most to say about the ease-of-use would be the guys using it. For the developers we have, they like the power and the control that Google gives them.  

So I can not actually answer what exactly has to improve for developers to be more satisfied at this point because they seem quite satisfied with it already. I do not get any complaints from the guys. They are the ones using it every day and I do not use it on a daily basis so I really can not comment in that sense.  

I could say that it can be easier to use for people that do not have the same level of technical skills, but even that has improved a lot with their upgrade to the user documentation.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have experience with Google Cloud for about two years now.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is extremely stable. I have no negative feedback and no complaints.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Google Cloud is very scalable. The use of Docker and Kubernetes has really made it extremely scalable. Google's implementation of Kubernetes is excellent.  

At this stage mainly we have developers and dev-ops using the product and it is a team of about 25 guys. We could expand that at any time.  

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is somewhat more complicated than competing products. I was not directly involved in that capacity so I can not provide details. But also complexity sometimes leads to opportunity as far as customizing performance. The people who are working with the product directly like the ability to fine-tune more than they want simplicity.  

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Initially, I was just doing research. I was keeping an open mind and looking at all of the possibilities. I do not think it is quite right to call it "evaluate" when you just do a feasibility study. We did take a closer look at a few solutions like Azure, Heroku, and Google Cloud. We dabbled a little bit with some of them. We eliminated Azure because we were concerned about the support for Mongo DB which is part of our technology stack. Obviously Azure has changed a lot since.  

We trimmed that group to Heroku and Google Cloud which are technically both platforms of high-quality. Heroku is easier to deal with. Using Google Cloud, you have to build a bit of experience with the product because it is not easy if you do not understand how to do things. Heroku makes it a lot easier for you.  

The reason we went with Google Cloud had to do with two things. Number one was cost, and number two is that Google supported everything we use. We had to control the costs initially, so Heroku was pretty much out the door almost immediately. It was a competitive product but it was too expensive. An end-user would not know where a platform is hosted, and they would not care. For an end-user, they go on your website or on your SaaS platform and there is no difference in the experience whether you are hosted with Google or Heroku or AWS. It makes no sense for them to worry about that. But the cost ends up being an important component of the decision for the service company.  

I think the point is that it is very difficult for companies these days to decide between Heroku, Azure and Google Cloud. They all have data centers in the right places in the UK. There is very little that differentiates any of them. Heroku obviously stands out because they are a very stable platform and they do all the hard work for you. If you do not have the expertise to go with a less expensive more labor-intensive solution, then you would go with Heroku and pay more.  

We have a development center in Manila with very experienced guys and they love Google Cloud. It gives them everything they need and everything that is required for a big, fast platform — like the ability to use clustering. I think all of the solutions support Java and ATC (Advanced Analytics Technology). But we have not had any issues since we started on Google Cloud, so we are happy with the direction we have taken.  

What other advice do I have?

The lesson I learned from adopting Google Cloud is that you should do more training before you commit to it.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Google Cloud as an eight-out-of-ten. You can not have a perfect platform. There is always room for improvement and something to add.  

That rating is really because of the feedback I get from the team. I get good feedback from the guys. But it is not really fair of me to give any product a ten if I am not more intimate with it in daily use. I could just as well give it a one if I were totally ignorant of the product, but that would not mean anything.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Real User
Stable, scalable, and easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the simple features that allow me to share documents with others."
  • "The privacy could be improved so that it is more secure."

What is our primary use case?

I use it for documentation.

What is most valuable?

I like the simple features that allow me to share documents with others.

Google Cloud is also stable and scalable.

It is easy to use as well.

What needs improvement?

The privacy could be improved so that it is more secure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for five years. It's a cloud-based solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Google Cloud is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Google Cloud and rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Lakshmi Narayan - PeerSpot reviewer
GTM Lead at GAC Digital
Real User
Easy to use, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The automatic sync between my mobile device data and photos to the cloud is the most valuable feature."
  • "The cost of the solution has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution to back up my data.

What is most valuable?

The automatic sync between my mobile device data and photos to the cloud is the most valuable feature.

Being able to access my files remotely is a plus.

What needs improvement?

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward and takes no time. We only need to enter our Gmail account information to access Google Cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Google offers a free account with minimal data backup and we can subscribe for more data. I pay around $2 US per month.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a ten out of ten.

I recommend the solution. Google Cloud is easy to use.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Head of .NET Department at Evozon
MSP
Top 5Leaderboard
It's a good solution for storage, infrastructure and services
Pros and Cons
  • "Google Cloud has low downtime."
  • "I consider Azure more secure than Google and Amazon because of all its certifications, but Google is secure enough and improving."

What is our primary use case?

We use Google Cloud for storage, infrastructure, and services. It provides file storage and infrastructure for deploying virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Dockers. We also use it for Google services that can be accessed by other software. Our company currently has about 60 users, and we plan to increase usage in the future. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've worked with Google Cloud for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

To discuss stability, we need to talk about specific services or infrastructure. Google Cloud has low downtime, but some services are slower, while others are faster. It depends on what you are talking about. It's stable on average. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I consider Azure more secure than Google and Amazon because of all its certifications, but Google is secure enough and improving. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Google Cloud could be cheaper.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Google Cloud eight out of 10. It's not something I would recommend for everyone. It depends on the needs. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Google Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Google Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.