Google App Engine vs Heroku comparison

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Google App Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Google App Engine and Heroku are competing cloud platform services, each offering distinct advantages. Google App Engine holds the upper hand in scalability and seamless integration with other Google Cloud services, making it a strong contender for enterprises embedded in the Google ecosystem. Heroku shines with its simplicity and developer-friendly interface, making it a popular choice among smaller teams for its ease of use.

Features: Google App Engine offers robust scalability, automatically managing resources with its pay-as-you-go model. It supports multiple languages such as Python, Java, and Node.js. A key advantage is its integration with various Google Cloud services, providing a comprehensive cloud solution. Heroku's value lies in its simple deployment process and extensive add-on ecosystem, making it easily extendable. Its continuous integration and application deployment features are highly praised, particularly for Node.js and Ruby on Rails environments.

Room for Improvement: Google App Engine could enhance user experience with a more intuitive deployment process and reduce complexities in configuration. Increasing flexibility, such as offering equivalent services for different app needs, would be beneficial. Heroku, while easy to use, may suffer from higher costs at scale; optimizing costs for larger deployments would be advantageous. Its free tier limitations and add-on pricing could be areas for reevaluation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Heroku provides an intuitive deployment process using Git, supporting CI/CD workflows with straightforward rollback capabilities and accessible documentation. Its customer service efficiently supports smaller organizations. Google App Engine's deployment process is more complex but offers powerful customizations. It provides enterprise-level customer support with comprehensive SLA options.

Pricing and ROI: Google App Engine offers flexible pricing suited for scalable applications with sustained discounts for long-running services. Heroku uses dyno hour-based pricing with clear tiered options. Though Heroku can incur higher costs at scale, its ease of use may justify the expense for rapid development. Google App Engine provides better ROI for companies leveraging extensive cloud services and requiring scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Google App Engine vs. Heroku Report (Updated: September 2025).

Google App Engine vs. Heroku

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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

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Heroku

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 3.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google App Engine	2.0%
Heroku	3.4%
Other	94.6%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Chandra Shekar Reddy Arrabolu

Associate Projects at Cognizant

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.

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Cristian-Molina

Senior Developer at Go Coeupas

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Seurity features - unauthorized individuals are unable to access certain applications."

"Google App Engine is highly scalable and can integrate easily with other applications."

"The WhatApp feature is the most valuable."

"The solution is serverless, so we don't have to operate it."

"The product's setup and deployment phases are easy."

"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."

"The initial setup is okay. It's not too complex. Deployment took about one day."

"I've noticed measurable benefits and return on investment by choosing Google App Engine."

More Google App Engine pros

"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."

"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."

"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."

"Thanks to Heroku, we don't need to do as much direct management in AWS."

"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."

"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."

"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."

More Heroku pros

Cons

"Data consumption of the device could be improved."

"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."

"Some clients don't use it because Google is very unstable with their products. Google has terminated many promising products in the past, and some clients have stated, 'This is from Google, we don't trust it because Google can change their mind any day.'"

"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."

"The interface and IDE, where I write code, could be improved. Unlike other IDEs like Visual Studio, it lacks easy access to available functions."

"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 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."

"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."

More Google App Engine cons

"We don't find the pipelines intuitive. The user experience could be better. Having to set up multiple apps, then a pipeline, seems like an overkill on the amount of work to do."

"The tool's configuration is complex."

"Heroku doesn't support Docker images on the CI infrastructure."

"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."

"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."

"I think this solution would be improved if free demos were available indefinitely."

"Heroku had an authentication problem a few months ago, but they solved it."

"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."

More Heroku cons

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."

"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"The tool is free."

"Its price is very good."

"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

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?

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.

Microsoft Azure vs Google App Engine

Comparisons

Compared 31% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google App Engine

Compared 25% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google App Engine

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon Lightsail vs Google App Engine

Compared 7% of the time

Acquia Cloud vs Google App Engine

Compared 6% of the time

More Google App Engine Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Heroku

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Heroku

Compared 12% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Heroku

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Fargate vs Heroku

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Heroku

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Google App Engine

Download Google App Engine product report

Download Heroku product report

Overview

Google App Engine is a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) provider that equips web application developers with all the resources and tools that they need to develop, test, and run their applications on Google's infrastructure. Everything is built into the kit, so with one download of the SDK, you'll be well on your way to first-rate apps.

Google

Established in 2007, Heroku is a cloud application platform providing a streamlined, efficient place for web app developers to create and deploy their applications. Heroku is designed to maximize developer productivity. With the entire web application development process available on the Herokucloud, creating and rolling out web apps has been made more efficient, convenient, and cost-effective than ever before.

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.

Google App Engine vs. Heroku