Google Anthos vs Google App Engine: What are the differences?

Introduction

Google Anthos and Google App Engine are two different Google Cloud services that offer different functionalities and features. Here are the key differences between the two:

1. Deployment Flexibility: Google Anthos provides a more flexible deployment option as it allows applications to be deployed across different environments, including on-premises, multi-cloud, or hybrid cloud. On the other hand, Google App Engine is a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering that focuses on simplifying the deployment and management of applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) only.

2. Containerization: Google Anthos emphasizes containerization as it uses technologies like Kubernetes and Istio to manage and orchestrate containers. It allows developers to build and deploy applications in a container-based environment, giving them more control and portability. In contrast, Google App Engine abstracts away the infrastructure and containerization details, allowing developers to focus more on writing the application code.

3. Multi-Cloud Support: Google Anthos is designed to enable applications to run not only on Google Cloud, but also on other cloud platforms like AWS and Azure. It provides a unified management and control plane for multi-cloud environments. On the other hand, Google App Engine is tightly integrated with Google Cloud Platform and does not provide direct support for other cloud providers.

4. Infrastructure Management: Google Anthos gives developers and administrators more control over the underlying infrastructure as it allows them to manage and customize the networking, security, and storage configurations. This flexibility is particularly useful in hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios. In contrast, Google App Engine abstracts away the infrastructure management, providing a simpler and more streamlined experience.

5. Scalability and Autoscaling: Both Google Anthos and Google App Engine offer scalability and autoscaling capabilities, but with a difference in focus. Google Anthos provides more granular control over the scaling and autoscaling policies, allowing for fine-tuning based on specific requirements. Google App Engine, on the other hand, abstracts away the scaling details and automatically handles the scaling based on the application's needs.

6. Pricing Model: The pricing models for Google Anthos and Google App Engine are different. Google Anthos follows a subscription-based pricing model, where users pay for the software licenses and support. Google App Engine, on the other hand, follows a usage-based pricing model where users are billed based on the resources consumed by the application.

In Summary, Google Anthos offers more deployment flexibility, containerization options, multi-cloud support, and infrastructure management capabilities compared to Google App Engine. However, Google App Engine provides a more streamlined and simplified experience, abstracting away the infrastructure details and pricing based on resource usage.