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First, does anyone know a specific advantage of Google App Engine for Python Apps? Is there some advantage over Heruko or Appfog? And about the database API?

Now, what about the limitations? Are there any factors that make you think twice about using GAE?

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  • Appspot is App Engine - no?
    – Fergal Moran
    Commented Dec 31, 2012 at 21:45
  • Sorry. I mean appfog.
    – ayr-ton
    Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 3:02

4 Answers 4

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Pros

  • Access to google infrastructure
  • Less likely that google( has the company) is going close shop then Heroku or Appspot

Cons

  • App Engine uses the Big Table database, so you are kinda limited to what database you use Edit They now have a cloud sql service which for limited time they are having a free trial but will be a paid feature
  • Google has a history of closing produts down that isn't align with there main revenue generator. Heroku and Appspot, this is there product so if they close it down then they are out of business

Not sure about Appspot but Heroku seems to implement newer technologies faster and has a bigger selection of backend databases to chose from

Also if you need to change infrastructure I believe that Heruku is much easier to move from then Google App

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  • In what aspects you do not like Big Table database?
    – ayr-ton
    Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 3:28
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    Appengine isn't limited to BigTable developers.google.com/cloud-sql
    – chris
    Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 4:24
  • +1 for noting that Google likes shutting things down that people use. I imagine they wouldn't tumble this one down quickly but it's an important business risk to note.
    – djechlin
    Commented May 5, 2013 at 17:32
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Pros

  • a pre-configured architecture that makes app development easier (once you know the concept)
  • automatic scalability
  • multi-site replication as the default
  • RDBMS or NoSQL databases available
  • Managed VMs (with your own configuration)

Cons

  • vendor dependency - relatively hard to port applications to other platforms
  • only three languages supported out of the box (Java, Python, Go, PHP)
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    You are forgetting about Go as a language :)
    – chris
    Commented Jan 1, 2013 at 4:24
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    GAE now supports PHP too
    – Mostafiz Rahman
    Commented Sep 14, 2014 at 17:02
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Here's my two cents:

Cons: - Slow development process. It's painfully slow to debug something related to data.

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Don't know why no one has mentioned this yet, but Google App Engine Launcher is a really neat little tool. It allows you to run your app on localhost, and when you make changes it automatically updates the app in real time without having to re-deploy. I'm sure that Heroku has something like this by now, but my experience with GAE Launcher has been really smooth. Also, a big con to GAE run apps is that error messages are really tricky to find. When you run an app on localhost, you can read the log in the provided console, but if you want to debug a deployed application, the only way to check logs is on the Admin Console, which is a website.

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