Google App Engine vs. IBM Cloud Functions

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google App Engine
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Google App Engine is Google Cloud's platform-as-a-service offering. It features pay-per-use pricing and support for a broad array of programming languages.
$0.05
Per Hour Per Instance
IBM Cloud Functions
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Functions is a PaaS platform based on Apache OpenWhisk. With it, developers write code (“actions”) that respond to external events. Actions are hosted, executed, and scaled on demand based on the number of events coming in. No servers or infrastructure to provision and manage.
$0
per second of execution
Pricing
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Editions & Modules
Starting Price
$0.05
Per Hour Per Instance
Max Price
$0.30
Per Hour Per Instance
Basic Cloud Functions Rate
$0.00017
per second of execution
API Gateway Rate
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Considered Both Products
Google App Engine
Chose Google App Engine
For our organization, we selected Google App Engine which provides a reliable and efficient way to create and deploy apps moreover it supports a lot of languages and provides automatic debugging of code which enables us to deploy code to production as soon as development is …
Chose Google App Engine
If you have a small team which is also responsible for development of the product then surely go for it. And if you have a larger team with dedicated person to take care of deployments. Go for cheaper options such as compute engine or AWS (be sure to do your research on pricing …
Chose Google App Engine
We prefer Google App Engine over Linode when need to hosting applications for R&D and Testing. Since the deployment has much less configuration.
Chose Google App Engine
It's the manageability of the Google App Engine which made it a better option in our case.
It's quite straightforward to deploy on App-Engine.
No worries for monitoring setup
Chose Google App Engine
You can create and scale Kubernetes clusters quickly, but you have to keep an eye on that cluster. In-App Engine, you don't have to worry about infrastructure, but in some scenarios, Kubernetes fits better.
Chose Google App Engine
Google App Engine is the first product we picked up to store the mass data. Later we came to know that, firebase database is also similar to Google App Engine. But still, we didn't step into it. We will try it later.
Chose Google App Engine
Azure App Service is in par with Google App Engine although you may want to use Azure App Service if you are integrating with other Microsoft IT components, for example SQL Server. Google App Engine is great when in long run, you will be using Google cloud components, for …
Chose Google App Engine
App Engine is a much more streamlined system than EC2. There is a fundamental difference between them, but they are used for basically the same thing as far a I could tell -- to serve applications EC2 is certainly more complicated, but if offers more machine-level control if …
Chose Google App Engine
Google App Engine is very easy to use and mostly up to date makes it compatible with all old and new devices. The applications are very interactive and the prices are accessible for most users. The prices tend to get slightly expensive as we head on towards higher …
Chose Google App Engine
The two giants are Google and Amazon. Both are very similar however Google App Engine allows you to deploy your web applications through platforms like Python where as if you're using AWS, you have full control on the operating system services. Google is good because you pay as …
Chose Google App Engine
We were on another much smaller cloud provider and decided to make the switch for several reasons - stability, breadth of services, and security. In reviewing options, GCP provided the best mixtures of meeting our needs while also balancing the overall cost of the service as …
Chose Google App Engine
We commonly decide between App Service, Elastic Beanstalk, and App Engine. Normally, we do not have a strong preference for the services, it really comes down to whether or not there are other factors drawing us toward a particular platform. In the case of App Engine, it is a …
Chose Google App Engine
I think that Microsoft and Amazon are simply investing more in their offerings, and there are a bunch of cool PaaS solutions out there as well. Google App Engine is solid, and is probably the right choice for some projects. But ultimately one should evaluate each platform …
Chose Google App Engine
Azure - too Windows. Do not want IIS or Windows OS. AWS - too much configuration for the tasks at hand.
Chose Google App Engine
Google Apps is great for environments where the need for a more robust platform is not necessary if you are looking to have email and cloud collaboration enablement of your working staff. From the stand point of using both, I can see the value of both but it really depends on …
Chose Google App Engine
AWS and Heroku are both great, and I use them both extensively for different projects. Google App Engine was chosen because it is much more innovative than AWS, and because Heroku specializes in Ruby on Rails. Even though Heroku supports Java and other services, we feel Google …
Chose Google App Engine
With GAE it's a matter of "code your app and deploy it". You don't care on what servers or on how many servers it runs. System administration is done for you. With AWS you still have to be a system administrator with good knowledge and undestanding of load balancers, database …
Chose Google App Engine
You can spawn up your own cluster using Kubernetes or Container Engine which will scale automatically when configured properly, but you have to keep an eye on that cluster. In App Engine you don't have to worry about it at all, just ship your code and it will run.
Chose Google App Engine
We chose Google App Engine because it supplies the most infrastructure per dollar spent. It's much more expensive to use Amazon EC2 to scale to over a million users. Also, the engine's narrow language support system, while somewhat limiting, makes getting started quickly much …
Chose Google App Engine
Heroku allows for more flexibility, but GAE gives you more APIs and features by default, whereas Heroku might require you to implement them yourself.
Chose Google App Engine
  • No management of operating system
  • Cheaper
Chose Google App Engine
We left Lotus Notes for the (more versatile) Google Apps. We could never recommend the closed architecture of Lotus Notes. We have evaluated Office 365 and believe the product is compelling. So compelling, that we may consider a platform change…
Chose Google App Engine
Google App Engine stands out since it offers everything as being a platform as a service. The other options I used before, such as classical development with servers available either in house or in the cloud still require a lot of management and the software frameworks …
IBM Cloud Functions
Chose IBM Cloud Functions
AWS Lambda is 100 times more robust than IBM cloud functions. They essentially do the same thing, but AWS works. AWS is stable. we have had epic failures with cloud functions. Support was horrible. We literally had an open ticket with them for 2 months and it literally went …
Chose IBM Cloud Functions
IBM Cloud Functions are native to IBM Cloud and are easy to integrate into other IBM Cloud applications.
Chose IBM Cloud Functions
  • ICF is a lightweight service and does not require runtime configurations
  • Scalable on demand and hence there is no need to pay for runtime costs
Chose IBM Cloud Functions
AWS Lambda might be more suited for larger scaled companies looking to consistently access similar features at a higher volume/frequency, but for smaller teams with a limited budget, IBM's Cloud Functions are a competitive choice
Features
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Google App Engine
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
IBM Cloud Functions
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google App EngineIBM Cloud Functions
Likelihood to Recommend
Google App Engine is especially well suited for situations where there is a variable workload during the day, e.g. inbound task processing with task queues. In this situation queues can be setup with parameters governing the process speed/scaling which allows you to easily balance performance with cost and meet a good balance.
Read full review
IBM Cloud Functions [is] not the worse product on the IBM cloud. I decided to write this review as I thought it would be balanced. I would still use functions to set up a serverless architecture where execution time is pretty quick and the code is relatively simple. I wouldn't use IBM Cloud Functions for async calls obviously, as costs could be higher. The functions documentation is lacking in terms of CI/CD, and there are unexplainable errors occurring - like the network connection that I mentioned. So I wouldn't just rely on IBM Cloud Functions too much for the entire system, but make sure it's diversified.
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Pros
  • Building an application that uses Google's Authentication, means users no longer need to remember an different user id and password. Once they are logged into to Google, they can seamlessly access your application hosted on Google App Engine.
  • Google App Engine automatically scales up and down. SO if your application receives a spike in user traffic, App Engine automatically launches additional instances of your application to cater for the increased traffic. Once App Engine detects that the spike is usage is over, it automatically scales down to handle the current traffic.
  • Google App Engine can be easily integrated with Google Cloud SQL, Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage etc, so that you can build out a full application using one or more of Google's Cloud Platform products.
Read full review
  • Validate raw data files - check the validity of raw data input to the system, to make sure we analyze only the relevant data. The raw data stream rate is hard to be predicted, since it depends on real world activities.
  • Analyze raw data - analyzing of valid raw data, described above.
  • Insert data to LOCAL data base.
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Cons
  • For beginners, there is a learning curve that can be reduced by decluttering the functionalities.
  • For much big migrations it takes to a lot of time to deploy which can be reduced.
  • The scaling of applications based on the user count is not seamless and it requires improvement.
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  • Billing can be a hassle, not the most responsive customer service/support team
  • Handles & executes most functionalities, but other platforms offer more scalability if you're seeking consistent and stable growth
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Likelihood to Renew
App Engine is a solid choice for deployments to Google Cloud Platform that do not want to move entirely to a Kubernetes-based container architecture using a different Google product. For rapid prototyping of new applications and fairly straightforward web application deployments, we'll continue to leverage the capabilities that App Engine affords us.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
Google App Engine is very intuitive. It has the common programming language most would use. Google is a dependable name and I have not had issues with their servers being down....ever. You can safely use their service and store your data on their servers without worrying about downtime or loss of data.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Good amount of documentation available for Google App Engine and in general there is large developer community around Google App Engine and other products it interacts with. Lastly, Google support is great in general. No issues so far with them.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
App Engine is a much more streamlined system than EC2. There is a fundamental difference between them, but they are used for basically the same thing as far a I could tell -- to serve applications EC2 is certainly more complicated, but if offers more machine-level control if that's what you need. It can tend to cost more as well. App Engine is far more straightforward but there are limitations if you need to change the environment. But even then, Google Compute Engine also compares to EC2 and stays within GCP.
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AWS Lambda is 100 times more robust than IBM cloud functions. They essentially do the same thing, but AWS works. AWS is stable. we have had epic failures with cloud functions. Support was horrible. We literally had an open ticket with them for 2 months and it literally went nowhere. They said it could do 100 calls a minute. We proved over and over that we couldn't get above 20 without getting failures. They had NO explanation whatsoever. The ticket got closed because we were tired of asking them questions and getting no understandable or usable response.
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Return on Investment
  • App Engine can scale basically infinitely so our users can always expect fast responsiveness.
  • App Engine has saved us money by only using the resources we need when we need them.
  • The security and IAM policies surrounding App Engine have saved a lot of head aches.
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  • Definitely has positive impact due to the pay only when used feature
  • Lightweight cloud services help with scaling without high investment in infrastructure
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ScreenShots