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Amazon EC2 vs Google App Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Amazon EC2
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Compute Service (6th)
Google App Engine
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EC2 is designed for Compute Service and holds a mindshare of 5.4%, down 7.6% compared to last year.
Google App Engine, on the other hand, focuses on PaaS Clouds, holds 2.2% mindshare, up 2.1% since last year.
Compute Service
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

KatlegoMabila - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers customization and flexibility with great support
Scalability depends on whether the client wants to scale up or scale down. It decreases resources based on demand. The great aspect of scalability is the flexibility to allow business success to optimize resource solutions and cost efficiency. Another crucial aspect of scalability is auto-scaling. When you have the opportunity to auto-scale, it can't always be available for everything. If you have chosen to integrate with auto-scaling, it's marvellous and doesn't require additional effort. Auto-scaling gives you the edge by using the capacity you have efficiently, scaling up or down as needed. These flexibilities within the EC2 feature instances of AWS play a crucial role in helping me utilize AWS EC2 Intelligent efficiently.
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

"The most valuable feature is autoscaling."
"Configuration can be changed at any time and it's very scalable."
"The best features of Amazon EC2 are its high performance and security."
"What I found most valuable in Amazon EC2 is that you only pay for what you use, versus an on-premise deployment that requires you to pay for the cost of the server. When it's on-premise, you'll need to meet more specifications and requirements, and the purchasing process even takes time. As Amazon EC2 is cloud-based, you'll only pay when you use the service."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are ease of use and the services offered."
"The Key Management Service (KMS) feature is very helpful for security. It encrypts the data that is being saved. Cloud storage is also very helpful, and it could be AWS S3, which a lot of people use."
"I like the AMI-related features. A very good feature of this solution is the customizable AMI. It is a very good feature provided by Amazon. The encryption technologies are also very good. We are using KMS, etc."
"EC2 has helped us to deploy various Microsoft applications efficiently. It has also facilitated our workstation operations."
"What I find most valuable about Google App Engine is its support for open-source development."
"The WhatApp feature is the most valuable."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward, considering that there is good documentation explaining the implementation part of it."
"The product's setup and deployment phases are easy."
"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."
"Google App Engine's most valuable feature is self-management. You do not have to manage the infrastructure underneath where all the functions are happening, such as load balancing deployment and version management, they are managed by the system itself."
"Administering App Engine is simple; it has intuitive UIs and a very scalable app engine."
"Seurity features - unauthorized individuals are unable to access certain applications."
 

Cons

"Regional acceleration could improve. If I am hosting a website and I want the experience to be faster they should have this feature to allow for increased speeds."
"An area for improvement in Amazon EC2 is the cost because it's a bit higher than competitor pricing."
"I think the pricing needs to be adjusted and better security."
"The IP changes whenever we restart which is frustrating."
"The solution’s pricing and downtimes could be improved."
"I would like to see as much automation for data validation as possible in the future."
"The monitoring part could be improved. When we're building and configuring things or doing database replication, EC2's monitoring could provide more information. It's hard to find the information I need in the graphs they provide."
"Lacks sufficient tools to help users minimize their costs."
"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."
"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."
"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."
"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."
"The interface and IDE, where I write code, could be improved. Unlike other IDEs like Visual Studio, it lacks easy access to available functions."
"Difficult to assess how pricing is managed."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The whitelist and blacklist of APIs can be a deal-breaker due to security concerns, and the deployment process is chaotic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is not cheap."
"For our usage, the cost is approximately $20,000 to $23,000 per month."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"You pay as you use it."
"The licensing of Amazon EC2 is expensive. Microsoft Windows Servers are expensive to license."
"The license fee for Amazon EC2 is higher than its competitors."
"I use the free tier, although I have paid for some services that are not free. The overall cost of this solution depends on the services you use."
"Pricing appears to be cheap, however, it is extremely difficult in calculating what something will cost."
"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."
"If we don't know how to work with the tool, we might have some spikes in price."
"We pay the license yearly. It's about $6 a month, which is $72 a year per person, so it's about $500."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
The main thing that needs improvement is the cost. Other than that, there is nothing that needs improvement.
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 have always used the free tier of Google App Engine, so I do not have insights into its pricing structure or costs.
What needs improvement with Google App Engine?
The main areas for improvement in Google App Engine include security restrictions and deployment processes. The whitelist and blacklist of APIs can be a deal-breaker due to security concerns, and t...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.
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