AppFog vs Engine Yard Cloud: What are the differences?

Developers describe AppFog as "Simple PaaS for Java, Python, Node, .Net, Ruby, PHP, MySQL, Mongo, and PostgreSQL". AppFog provides the infrastructure web developers need to build apps without worrying about IT tasks or having to wait days to get servers ready for writing code. AppFog’s web application technologies include PHP, NodeJS, Ruby, Python, Java, .NET, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. On the other hand, Engine Yard Cloud is detailed as "Deploy and scale Rails applications in the cloud". The Engine Yard Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a product family that leverages open source technologies to orchestrate and automate the configuration, deployment and management of applications on multiple infrastructures.

AppFog and Engine Yard Cloud can be primarily classified as "Platform as a Service" tools.

Some of the features offered by AppFog are:

• Launches fast, runs fast- Varnish Cache and op-code caching run applications with less server load and accelerated performance.
• Reduces ops work- No more configuring servers, firewalls, Apache, security, or installing frameworks.
• Plays well with any SCM- Versioning is critical. AppFog is compatible with code management systems like git, svn, and mercurial.

On the other hand, Engine Yard Cloud provides the following key features:

• Dedicated, secure, commercial-grade platform that increases agility
• Focus on your code - not on operations or platform maintenance
• Scale cloud applications and infrastructure rapidly

"The basic plan is free" is the top reason why over 3 developers like AppFog, while over 5 developers mention "Great customer support" as the leading cause for choosing Engine Yard Cloud.