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Google Compute Engine vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

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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

Google Compute Engine
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (14th)
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Google Compute Engine is designed for Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
Pivotal Cloud Foundry, on the other hand, focuses on PaaS Clouds, holds 4.8% mindshare, down 8.5% since last year.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Compute Engine1.3%
Amazon AWS12.8%
Microsoft Azure8.6%
Other77.3%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pivotal Cloud Foundry4.8%
Amazon AWS13.3%
Microsoft Azure11.3%
Other70.6%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

AK
Cloud Engineer at Global Payments Inc.
SSH access has simplified my backend deployments but setup and architecture still need improvement
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a different team, and I have been using them as it is a normal case, similar to a normal Linux server. I have noticed a positive impact since the deployment of Google Compute Engine; it is simpler. However, for those who are not very much familiar with Google Cloud, it can, at times, be difficult. Also, the freebies are not much from Google's side, referring to the credits, so that users can become more familiar since there is a limited amount or it is case-dependent. Without trying Google Compute Engine totally, I cannot tell you much about it. From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS. The complexity increases, especially if we want to access the things over the API; we need to explicitly set up things and can only access the CLI environment of GCP, which is sometimes a hectic task.
reviewer2263239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations
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. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is reasonably straightforward. It's a handful of networks and a handful of computers."
"The support for ephemeral instances has been particularly valuable for me. It allows me to significantly reduce costs for temporary virtual machines by automatically destroying them once they are no longer needed, which can result in cost savings of up to 90 percent. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"The solution helps to direct SSH into the machine at the click of a button. It also helps to deploy container images right from the UI. There is no need to manage the containers on the machine. I also like the tool’s Spot provision model."
"The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service."
"The overall product rating is nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is auto-scaling."
"Compared to other IaaS providers, I believe that Google Compute Engine (GCE) stands out with the ability to customize the virtual machines."
"One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and that the deployment is easier."
"The solution is stable, and we have not experienced any infrastructure issues, so it is very good and captures a few metrics, onboarding to App Dynamics."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."
 

Cons

"The licensing process is not a very straightforward process."
"It has some limitations. For example, you don't get through layer two connectivity. So I've had some difficulty deploying custom VMs. For example, you can't deploy a KVM file to file directly on GCP."
"There have been a few (rare) instances where I've encountered a stability issue during the beta pre-production stage of the product."
"Sometimes support takes time to reply."
"I rate the product's stability around five to six out of ten."
"Google Compute Engine needs to have multi-region support. It would also be nice to have a tracking mechanism."
"There have been instances when a customer has tried to deploy a certain number of VMs inside a project, and they come across quota issues."
"It would be better if there was an option to change the background. Like in Gmail, there's an option to change your theme."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"I would prefer to use Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform rather than Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
"It should offer more security features."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology, it is a bit complex."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is not scalable, infinitely, because when you install it on a set of virtual machines it is very hard to scale. It's easy to scale on an application level, but not it is not similar to if you were using Amazon. Amazon you can scale thousands of applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."
"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."
"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."
"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."
"The tool is reasonably priced, considering its scalability features. If we want to extend the server's capacity, we can do it, and I think it's reasonable."
"In terms of improvement, one is definitely the licensing piece. So there is a feature, the BYOL (Bring Your Own License) licensing piece, to bring your own license. It is not that straightforward. It requires some support from Google to get it sorted, access those licenses, and configure those licenses."
"Google Compute Engine is not the least expensive solution. Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft One, are offering a less expensive solution. The price is based on usage. Whenever we use it, we have to pay for only usage. It is a pay-as-you-go model."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"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."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
23%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Regarding the pricing and licensing of Google Compute Engine, when I refer to licensing, it implies the price or a credit-based system. While doing my personal projects, I prefer AWS over GCP and u...
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Currently, I have not found much value in the features or capabilities of Google Compute Engine because I only use SSH access, as I have not used many of their services. It is already set up by a d...
What is your primary use case for Google Compute Engine?
My usual use cases for Google Compute Engine involve deploying the backends and APIs only.
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...
 

Also Known As

GCE
PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync
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 Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.