Google App Engine vs Heroku

Overview

Heroku

Stacks25.8K

Followers20.5K

Votes3.2K

Google App Engine

Stacks10.5K

Followers8.1K

Votes611

Google App Engine vs Heroku: What are the differences?

Scalability: Google App Engine and Heroku have different approaches to scalability. App Engine provides automatic scaling where it dynamically allocates resources based on the application's needs. On the other hand, Heroku allows manual scaling by letting developers choose the number of dynos, which are containers where applications run. This gives developers more control over scalability but requires manual adjustments.
Pricing model: Google App Engine uses a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the resources you use. It offers a free tier for basic usage. Heroku, on the other hand, has a more transparent pricing model with fixed plans for different levels of usage. This can be advantageous for predictable workloads but may not be as cost-effective for fluctuating usage patterns.
Ease of deployment: Heroku makes deployment easy with its simple and streamlined process. Developers can push their code to the Heroku Git repository, and the platform handles the rest, automatically building and deploying the application. App Engine also provides an easy deployment process, but it requires developers to use the App Engine SDK and configure the deployment settings.
Supported languages: Heroku offers support for a wide range of programming languages, including Ruby, Node.js, Java, Python, and more. App Engine also supports several languages, but it has a more limited selection compared to Heroku. This can be a key factor for developers who prefer working with a specific language.
Backend services: Google App Engine provides built-in support for various backend services like Cloud Datastore for NoSQL databases, Cloud Storage for file storage, and more, making it easier for developers to build and integrate these services into their applications. Heroku, on the other hand, does not offer such built-in services and requires developers to integrate with external providers.
Vendor lock-in: While both platforms allow you to build and deploy applications, there is a difference in vendor lock-in. Heroku is a platform built on top of infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), which means you can easily switch to another provider if needed. Google App Engine, however, is a more integrated platform and comes with some level of vendor lock-in, as the backend services and infrastructure are tightly linked to Google Cloud Platform.

In Summary, Google App Engine and Heroku differ in their approach to scalability, pricing model, ease of deployment, supported languages, availability of built-in backend services, and level of vendor lock-in.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Heroku, Google App Engine

Alex

Oct 20, 2020

Decided

I'm transitioning to Render from heroku. The pricing scale matches my usage scale, yet it's just as easy to deploy. It's removed a lot of the devops that I don't like to deal with on setting up my own raw *nix box and makes deployment simple and easy!

Clustering I don't use clustering features at the moment but when i need to set up clustering of nodes and discoverability, render will enable that where Heroku would require that I use an external service like redis.

Restarts The restarts are annoying. I understand the reasoning, but I'd rather watch my service if its got a memory leak and work to fix it than to just assume that it has memory leaks and needs to restart.

101k views101k

Comments

Ben

Web Designer & Developer at Self-employed

Apr 12, 2022

Decided

As I was running through freeCodeCamp's curriculum, I was becoming frustrated by Replit's black box nature as a shared server solution for Node app testing. I wanted to move into a proper workflow with Git and a dedicated deployment solution just for educational or non-commercial purposes. Heroku solved that for me in spades.

Not only does Heroku support free app deployment if you don't use their extra service handlers, but you can directly hook into your GitHub repos and automatically update the app whenever you commit to the main branch. It's a simple way to get an app running as fast as possible if you wish to share a proof of concept or prototype before moving to dedicated servers.

18.1k views18.1k

Comments

Alejandro

May 13, 2022

Review

I recently came across a training course on using Django and React together. That got me thinking about how to serve up the project and remember that Heroku had a great interface for serving up my Django/Python App so I would think it should work. Figured I would throw in my 2 cents, not sure if it helps.

1.26k views1.26k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Heroku	Google App Engine
Heroku is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Heroku lets app developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployment, ongoing operations, or scaling.	Google has a reputation for highly reliable, high performance infrastructure. With App Engine you can take advantage of the 10 years of knowledge Google has in running massively scalable, performance driven systems. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow.
Agile deployment for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, Go and Scala.;Run and scale any type of app.;Total visibility across your entire app.;Erosion-resistant architecture. Rich control surfaces.	Zero to sixty: Scale your app automatically without worrying about managing machines.;Supercharged APIs: Supercharge your app with services such as Task Queue, XMPP, and Cloud SQL, all powered by the same infrastructure that powers the Google services you use every day.;You're in control: Manage your application with a simple, web-based dashboard allowing you to customize your app's performance.
Statistics
Stacks 25.8K	Stacks 10.5K
Followers 20.5K	Followers 8.1K
Votes 3.2K	Votes 611
Pros & Cons
Pros 703 Easy deployment 459 Free for side projects 374 Huge time-saver 348 Simple scaling 261 Low devops skills required Cons 27 Super expensive 9 Not a whole lot of flexibility 7 Storage 7 No usable MySQL option 5 Low performance on free tier	Pros 145 Easy to deploy 106 Auto scaling 80 Good free plan 62 Easy management 56 Scalability
Integrations
Mailgun Postmark Loggly Papertrail Redis Cloud Red Hat Codeready Workspaces Nitrous.IO Logentries MongoLab Gemfury	Red Hat Codeready Workspaces Twilio Twilio SendGrid

What are some alternatives to Heroku, Google App Engine?

Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud is a polyglot cloud application platform. The service helps developers to build applications with many languages and services, with auto-scaling features and a true pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Red Hat OpenShift

OpenShift is Red Hat's Cloud Computing Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering. OpenShift is an application platform in the cloud where application developers and teams can build, test, deploy, and run their applications.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Once you upload your application, Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring.

Render

Render is a unified platform to build and run all your apps and websites with free SSL, a global CDN, private networks and auto deploys from Git.

Hasura

An open source GraphQL engine that deploys instant, realtime GraphQL APIs on any Postgres database.

Cloud 66

Cloud 66 gives you everything you need to build, deploy and maintain your applications on any cloud, without the headache of dealing with "server stuff". Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Jamstack, Laravel, GoLang, and more.

Jelastic

Jelastic is a Multi-Cloud DevOps PaaS for ISVs, telcos, service providers and enterprises needing to speed up development, reduce cost of IT infrastructure, improve uptime and security.

Dokku

It is an extensible, open source Platform as a Service that runs on a single server of your choice. It helps you build and manage the lifecycle of applications from building to scaling.

PythonAnywhere

It's somewhat unique. A small PaaS that supports web apps (Python only) as well as scheduled jobs with shell access. It is an expensive way to tinker and run several small apps.

CapRover

It is an extremely easy to use app/database deployment & web server manager for your NodeJS, Python, PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby, MySQL, MongoDB, Postgres, WordPress (and etc...) applications! It's blazingly fast and very robust as it uses Docker, nginx, LetsEncrypt and NetData under the hood behind its simple-to-use interface.

Related Comparisons

Google App Engine vs Heroku: What are the differences?

Scalability: Google App Engine and Heroku have different approaches to scalability. App Engine provides automatic scaling where it dynamically allocates resources based on the application's needs. On the other hand, Heroku allows manual scaling by letting developers choose the number of dynos, which are containers where applications run. This gives developers more control over scalability but requires manual adjustments.
Pricing model: Google App Engine uses a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the resources you use. It offers a free tier for basic usage. Heroku, on the other hand, has a more transparent pricing model with fixed plans for different levels of usage. This can be advantageous for predictable workloads but may not be as cost-effective for fluctuating usage patterns.
Ease of deployment: Heroku makes deployment easy with its simple and streamlined process. Developers can push their code to the Heroku Git repository, and the platform handles the rest, automatically building and deploying the application. App Engine also provides an easy deployment process, but it requires developers to use the App Engine SDK and configure the deployment settings.
Supported languages: Heroku offers support for a wide range of programming languages, including Ruby, Node.js, Java, Python, and more. App Engine also supports several languages, but it has a more limited selection compared to Heroku. This can be a key factor for developers who prefer working with a specific language.
Backend services: Google App Engine provides built-in support for various backend services like Cloud Datastore for NoSQL databases, Cloud Storage for file storage, and more, making it easier for developers to build and integrate these services into their applications. Heroku, on the other hand, does not offer such built-in services and requires developers to integrate with external providers.
Vendor lock-in: While both platforms allow you to build and deploy applications, there is a difference in vendor lock-in. Heroku is a platform built on top of infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), which means you can easily switch to another provider if needed. Google App Engine, however, is a more integrated platform and comes with some level of vendor lock-in, as the backend services and infrastructure are tightly linked to Google Cloud Platform.

Google App Engine vs Heroku

Overview