Google App Engine vs Google Cloud comparison

Google App Engine and Google Cloud are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Google App Engine is ranked #13 with an average rating of 9.0, while Google Cloud is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2. Google App Engine holds a 2.3% mindshare in PSP, compared to Google Cloud’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Google App Engine users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Google Cloud users who would recommend it.

Google App Engine

Read 24 Google App Engine reviews

1,788 Views
1,538 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Google Cloud

Read 74 Google Cloud reviews

6,593 Views
4,846 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Google App Engine

Google Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Google App Engine and Google Cloud operate within the cloud platform category. While both serve as essential parts of Google’s offerings, Google Cloud stands out due to its extensive features despite its higher costs.

Features: Google App Engine supports automatic scaling, offers a serverless architecture, and features a user-friendly deployment process. Google Cloud provides a vast array of services, versatile integrations, and advanced data analytics support.

Room for Improvement: Google App Engine could benefit from more flexible service options, enhanced database compatibility, and a more robust free tier. Google Cloud could improve by simplifying its complex service interface, reducing initial costs, and streamlining the deployment process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google App Engine offers a simplified deployment process with automatic server management, requiring minimal customer interaction. Google Cloud's deployment is more intricate but supports a wider range of services, needing substantial customer service to navigate its offerings.

Pricing and ROI: Google App Engine provides cost-effective solutions with a predictable pricing model, ideal for startups aiming for high ROI with minimal upfront cost. Google Cloud, while offering significant value through extensive services, demands a larger initial investment, potentially delivering better ROI for large-scale projects.

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

Buyer's Guide

Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 845,040 peers since 2012

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

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud is 6.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

OmkarPatil

Chief Executive Officer at Nyx CodeCraft

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.

Read full review

RaidHammouri

Presales Engineer at 2P - Perfect Presentation

Monitoring solution enhances cost efficiency with good internal tools

In terms of Google services, providing more hypervisors would be beneficial. Currently, in my region, they don't offer many services as they have just started. They have some local instances, yet improvements are needed in the tools and offers provided to customers. I currently only use, for example, a native hybrid. VMware is not available, and other hypervisors are still not there. They need to wait on that.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Administering App Engine is simple; it has intuitive UIs and a very scalable app engine."

"It is simple to use. It is much simpler than AWS. It is also very powerful."

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

"Its ability to integrate with most devices helps users who have different or old devices."

"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 zero infrastructure management is valuable, allowing me to focus on the code rather than the service."

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

"The WhatApp feature is the most valuable."

More Google App Engine pros

"The availability of content on the solution is very valuable."

"Google Cloud is very user-friendly."

"The tool's most valuable feature is encryption. Google Cloud has reduced our operational costs and increased efficiency. For example, deploying production applications traditionally took about a month, but with Google Cloud, it now takes only a day or two. This also extends to monitoring, allowing us to identify and address issues faster than on-premises solutions."

"Google Cloud is perceived as a cost-effective and user-friendly option, especially compared to AWS. The current affordability and ease of use make it suitable for medium-sized companies. While the complexity may increase in the future, for now, Google Cloud is considered easy to use."

"Google Cloud is user friendly and reliable. The most valuable feature is the security of Google Cloud."

"The performance is a valuable feature."

"Google Cloud's most valuable attribute is its capability for on-demand auto-scaling, and it also simplifies numerous intricate tasks for its users."

"It's a perfect tool for startups."

More Google Cloud pros

Cons

"Some features of runtime don't work well in App Engine."

"The documentation and community are lacking for this product."

"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"I would like a simpler deployment tool on laptops. It is a bit complicated at the moment. We know how to do it, but it could be easier to deploy it on laptops."

"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."

"There is limited customization because the sandbox environment restricts it."

"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."

More Google App Engine cons

"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."

"I would like to see an increase in storage with Google Cloud."

"They could integrate artificial intelligence into the applications."

"I would like to see more code generation features that enable you to take user input in simple English and automatically convert it to code."

"The management side for the database needs some work. Currently, you do everything from the APP. It would be nice to have an interface where you can go in and maintain data and deal with records and do something online."

"The security features must be improved."

"We'd like the storage to be increased."

"The UI is beautiful but not easy to use, and also a little slow. Anything that you click is slow to load. It is also not easy to find something. I do not find the left-hand side menu good. We have a lot of options mixed there and we need the best way to deploy cloud resources. I prefer Azure ARM templates since their JSON files are easy to manipulate and integrate with other tools."

More Google Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It's not really an expensive solution, but it would be better if there were more flexibility in the pricing model."

"We use the NGO version so the cloud reasonably priced at $2 to $3 per month."

"We approached Google Cloud with certain cost assumptions but were surprised to find that our actual expenses were higher than expected. Initially, we had anticipated spending a set amount on the solution, but in reality, we ended up spending more than that. It would be helpful to have greater transparency and educational documentation on the cost-related aspects of Google Cloud."

"This solution is worth the money we are paying. I would rate the pricing a three out of five."

"The solution is cheaper than Azure."

"The solution is cheaper than AWS."

"The licensing cost is based on the capacity we use."

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

More Google Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

University

Educational Organization

51%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google App Engine?

If we don't know how to work with the tool, we might have some spikes in price. It will increase a lot of our bill. I rate the pricing a six out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google App Engine?

The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required.

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Cloud?

Google Cloud is perceived as a cost-effective and user-friendly option, especially compared to AWS. The current affordability and ease of use make it suitable for medium-sized companies. While the ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?

My platform offers a monitoring solution for the virtual machines hosted in GCP. GCP is one of the firms that I work with. For customers who use GCP as an infrastructure service, software as a serv...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Google App Engine

Compared 59% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google App Engine

Compared 20% of the time

Heroku vs Google App Engine

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Google App Engine

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Lightsail vs Google App Engine

Compared 3% of the time

More Google App Engine Competitors

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Cloud

Compared 32% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Google Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Google Cloud

Compared 9% of the time

More Google Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google App Engine

March 2025

Download Google App Engine product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud

March 2025

Download Google Cloud 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

Google Cloud is an Infrastructure as a Service Cloud (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution that provides infrastructure tools and services for building applications on top of a public cloud computing platform. As one of the leading global infrastructures, this product allows users to securely manage enterprise data, receive valuable insights, and store documents. Google Cloud provides its various services through tools and services for data warehousing, security key enforcement, application programming interface (API) management, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML).

The use cases of Google Cloud can be divided into four main categories:

Big data
Compute
Services
Storage

The solution is utilized by organizations of all sizes and industries, as it is suitable for the following purposes:

Running and building applications: Google Cloud lets businesses run and build their applications anywhere because of its commitment to open-source, hybrid, and multi-cloud. This can accelerate development time as businesses avoid vendor lock-in.
Data insight: Google Cloud provides companies with advanced ML and analytics for their data. This can facilitate business decisions and improve work processes, as every team member can have access to data reports via this solution.
Security: Utilizing Google's technology, this solution helps users protect and defend their data and applications against threats and harmful activities.
Team collaboration: Google Cloud offers companies advanced collaboration features. They can integrate email, chat, video calling, and document collaboration all in one place when using this platform.

Google Cloud Features

Google Cloud offers multiple features for its clients. Some of these include:

Big data features: The solution offers full big data services through tools such as BigQuery and Google Cloud Dataflow. These tools allow users to process large data queries as well as create, monitor, and receive reports from data processing pipelines.
Containers: The solution offers containers, which allow users to speed up deployment and scale applications.
Cloud debugger: This feature allows users to debug code during the production process. In this way, businesses are able to locate issues early in the code and fix them before deploying the application.
Cloud save: This feature provides the ability to synchronize cloud-stored data across all devices an organization is supporting. Through it, users can save and retrieve information and maintain all data copies up to date.
Cloud trace: This Google Cloud feature allows users to detect the reasons for performance bottlenecks and fix the issues. It also provides users with information on the time their product takes to process certain requests, allowing them to follow performance more closely.
Hosting features: The solution offers two hosting options. App Engine is the PaaS of Google Cloud and Computes Engine is their IaaS.
Load balancing: This feature balances the traffic of multiple compute instances across various geographic regions.
Maintenance: Users receive frequent insight into the performance of their applications and through automations, Google Cloud lets them know of any issues that need to be fixed.

Google Cloud Benefits

Google Cloud brings various benefits to its users. Some of these include the following:

The pricing model of Google Cloud allows users to pay only for the selected features and tools they wish to use, which saves their organizations money.
Users can rely on accelerated content delivery through Google Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Google Cloud offers a wide variety of tools and libraries, which assist users in the development of cloud applications.
The tool has an advanced admin control that allows users to easily add or remove new users and maintain the security of business platforms.
Google Cloud offers consulting services whereby experts provide assistance with cloud strategy development.
The platform is updated on a frequent basis, which can increase companies' productivity through consistent innovations.
Google Cloud offers remote access from anywhere at all times via Google's web applications.
The solution reduces the risks of data breaches as it offers minimal storage of offline data.
Users can expect support not only from the platform but from the growing online community as well, where their questions can be answered in a timely manner.
The product provides detailed documentation for its clients, allowing them to benefit from tutorials and other samples, in order to learn to work with it in the most efficient way.

Reviews from Real Users

Isuru P., an assistant vice president at a tech services company, likes Google Cloud because it is easy to deploy next-generation applications using it.

An IT solutions consultant at a tech services company rates Google Cloud highly because they find the solution stable with a good user experience and a straightforward setup.

Google

Sample Customers

Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud

March 2025

Free Report: Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Google App Engine vs. Google Cloud report.

See our list of best PaaS Clouds vendors.

We monitor all PaaS Clouds reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.