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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
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
8th
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 May 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 10.2%, up from 8.0% 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.
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 solution is serverless, so we don't have to operate it."
"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."
"I've noticed measurable benefits and return on investment by choosing Google App Engine."
"What I find most valuable about Google App Engine is its support for open-source development."
"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 product's setup and deployment phases are easy."
"Administering App Engine is simple; it has intuitive UIs and a very scalable app engine."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."
"We find its stability and scalability valuable."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."
"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."
 

Cons

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."
"Data consumption of the device could be improved."
"There is limited customization because the sandbox environment restricts it."
"The only concern is that there is a number of the offerings which are built on their own proprietary technologies. With some of the offerings in Google Cloud, it's difficult to have a path to migrate to other cloud providers."
"The whitelist and blacklist of APIs can be a deal-breaker due to security concerns, and the deployment process is chaotic."
"The support for the Indian region is not as good as compared to the support that is offered to the regions in Europe."
"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."
"It should offer more security features."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."
"Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
 

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."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"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 could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
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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
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Insurance Company
6%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

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 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...
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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.