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Databricks Runtime VS Google App Engine

Compare Databricks Runtime VS Google App Engine and see what are their differences

Databricks Runtime logo Databricks Runtime

Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Google App Engine logo Google App Engine

A powerful platform to build web and mobile apps that scale automatically.
  • Databricks Runtime Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-16
  • Google App Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-17

Databricks Runtime features and specs

  • Optimized Performance
    Databricks Runtime is optimized for performing heavy data workloads, providing better performance compared to using open-source Apache Spark without specific tuning.
  • Built-in Integrations
    It includes built-in integrations with popular data storage and management services like Azure, AWS, and many other data ecosystem tools, making it easier to set up a data infrastructure.
  • Enhanced Security
    Databricks Runtime offers advanced security features including role-based access controls and encryption to ensure that data is protected while being processed.
  • Up-to-date Libraries
    It provides a set of libraries that are kept up-to-date with the latest versions and improvements, ensuring that users have access to the best tools for data processing and analytics.
  • Collaboration Features
    The platform facilitates collaboration among data teams with tools like notebooks that can be shared and collaboratively edited in real time.

Possible disadvantages of Databricks Runtime

  • Cost
    While Databricks Runtime offers many advanced features, they come at a cost, which can be a significant factor for smaller organizations or startups with limited budgets.
  • Complexity
    For users who are not familiar with cloud-based data platforms, setting up and managing Databricks can be complex and might require a steep learning curve.
  • Dependency on Cloud Provider
    Since Databricks relies on cloud providers like AWS or Azure, users are dependent on these services, which can introduce risks related to service availability and outages.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Using Databricks Runtime can lead to vendor lock-in, where migrating to another platform might become challenging due to the proprietary features and integrations you rely on.
  • Resource Management
    Managing and optimizing resource usage in Databricks can be complex, and inefficient resource management can lead to increased costs.

Google App Engine features and specs

  • Auto-scaling
    Google App Engine automatically scales your application based on the traffic it receives, ensuring that your application can handle varying workloads without manual intervention.
  • Managed environment
    App Engine provides a fully managed environment, covering infrastructure management tasks like server provisioning, patching, monitoring, and managing app versions.
  • Integrated services
    Seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud services such as Datastore, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, and more, offering a comprehensive ecosystem for building and deploying applications.
  • Multiple languages support
    Supports multiple programming languages including Java, Python, PHP, Node.js, Go, Ruby, and .NET, giving developers flexibility in choosing their preferred language.
  • Security
    Offers robust security features including Identity and Access Management (IAM), Cloud Identity, and automated security updates, which help protect your applications from vulnerabilities.
  • Developer productivity
    App Engine allows rapid development and deployment, letting developers focus on writing code without worrying about infrastructure management, thus boosting productivity.
  • Versioning
    Supports versioning of applications, allowing multiple versions of the application to be hosted simultaneously, which helps in A/B testing and rollback capabilities.

Possible disadvantages of Google App Engine

  • Cost
    While you pay for what you use, costs can escalate quickly with high traffic or resource-intensive applications. Detailed cost prediction can be challenging.
  • Vendor lock-in
    Relying heavily on Google App Engine's proprietary services and APIs can make it difficult to migrate applications to other platforms, leading to vendor lock-in.
  • Limited control
    Being a fully managed service, App Engine provides limited control over the underlying infrastructure which might be a limitation for certain advanced use cases.
  • Environment constraints
    Certain restrictions and limitations are imposed on the runtime environment, such as request timeout limits and specific resource quotas, which can affect application performance.
  • Complex debugging
    Debugging issues in a highly abstracted managed environment can be more complex and difficult compared to traditional server-hosted applications.
  • Cold start latency
    Serverless environments like App Engine can suffer from cold start latency, where the initial request triggers a delay as the environment spins up resources.
  • Configuration complexity
    Despite its benefits, configuring and optimizing App Engine for specific scenarios can be more complex than expected, requiring a steep learning curve.

Analysis of Google App Engine

Overall verdict

  • Google App Engine is generally considered a good choice for developers looking for a serverless platform to deploy their applications quickly without managing underlying infrastructure. Its ease of use, scalability, and integration with Google's ecosystem make it a strong option, especially for projects expecting to scale significantly or require integration with other Google Cloud services.

Why this product is good

  • Google App Engine is a fully managed serverless platform that allows developers to build scalable web applications and mobile backends. It abstracts away infrastructure management, handles scaling automatically, and offers integration with other Google Cloud services, providing a high degree of flexibility and efficiency. Its key strengths include support for multiple programming languages, built-in security features, and seamless connectivity to Google's machine learning and data analytics tools.

Recommended for

    Google App Engine is recommended for developers building web applications who prefer a Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, startups who need a solution that can grow with them without worrying about scaling issues, teams wanting to leverage Google's robust data and analytics offerings, and businesses that require a global reach with reliable performance.

Databricks Runtime videos

Advancing Spark - Databricks Runtime 7 5 Review

More videos:

  • Review - Advancing Spark - Databricks Runtime 7 3 Beta Review
  • Demo - Databricks Runtime for Machine Learning Demo

Google App Engine videos

Get to know Google App Engine

More videos:

  • Review - Developing apps that scale automatically with Google App Engine

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Databricks Runtime and Google App Engine)
Cloud Hosting
7 7%
93% 93
Cloud Computing
7 7%
93% 93
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Backend As A Service
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Databricks Runtime and Google App Engine

Databricks Runtime Reviews

We have no reviews of Databricks Runtime yet.
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Google App Engine Reviews

Top 5 Alternatives to Heroku
Google App Engine is fast, easy, but not that very cheap. The pricing is reasonable, and it comes with a free tier, which is great for small projects that are right for beginner developers who want to quickly set up their apps. It can also auto scale, create new instances as needed and automatically handle high availability. App Engine gets a positive rating for performance...
AppScale - The Google App Engine Alternative
AppScale is open source Google App Engine and allows you to run your GAE applications on any infrastructure, anywhere that makes sense for your business. AppScale eliminates lock-in and makes your GAE application portable. This way you can choose which public or private cloud platform is the best fit for your business requirements. Because we are literally the GAE...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google App Engine seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 31 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Databricks Runtime mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Databricks Runtime yet. Tracking of Databricks Runtime recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Google App Engine mentions (31)

  • Guide to modern app-hosting without servers on Google Cloud
    If Google App Engine (GAE) is the "OG" serverless platform, Cloud Run (GCR) is its logical successor, crafted for today's modern app-hosting needs. GAE was the 1st generation of Google serverless platforms. It has since been joined, about a decade later, by 2nd generation services, GCR and Cloud Functions (GCF). GCF is somewhat out-of-scope for this post so I'll cover that another time. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Security in the Cloud: Your Role in the Shared Responsibility Model
    As Windsales Inc. expands, it adopts a PaaS model to offload server and runtime management, allowing its developers and engineers to focus on code development and deployment. By partnering with providers like Heroku and Google App Engine, Windsales Inc. Accesses a fully managed runtime environment. This choice relieves Windsales Inc. Of managing servers, OS updates, or runtime environment behavior. Instead,... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Hosting apps in the cloud with Google App Engine in 2024
    Google App Engine (GAE) is their original serverless solution and first cloud product, launching in 2008 (video), giving rise to Serverless 1.0 and the cloud computing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) service level. It didn't do function-hosting nor was the concept of containers mainstream yet. GAE was specifically for (web) app-hosting (but also supported mobile backends as well). - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Fixing A Broken Deployment to Google App Engine
    In 2014, I took a web development on Udacity that was taught by Steve Huffman of Reddit fame. He taught authentication, salting passwords, the difference between GET and POST requests, basic html and css, caching techniques. It was a fantastic introduction to web dev. To pass the course, students deployed simple python servers to Google App Engine. When I started to look for work, I opted to use code from that... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Next.js Deployment: Vercel's Charm vs. GCP's Muscle
    GCP offers a comprehensive suite of cloud services, including Compute Engine, App Engine, and Cloud Run. This translates to unparalleled control over your infrastructure and deployment configurations. Designed for large-scale applications, GCP effortlessly scales to accommodate significant traffic growth. Additionally, for projects heavily reliant on Google services like BigQuery, Cloud Storage, or AI/ML tools,... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Databricks Runtime and Google App Engine, you can also consider the following products

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

Salesforce Platform - Salesforce Platform is a comprehensive PaaS solution that paves the way for the developers to test, build, and mitigate the issues in the cloud application before the final deployment.

Nuclio - Nuclio is an open source serverless platform.

Heroku - Agile deployment platform for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala. Setup takes only minutes and deploys are instant through git. Leave tedious server maintenance to Heroku and focus on your code.

Fission.io - Fission.io is a serverless framework for Kubernetes that supports many concepts such as event triggers, parallel execution, and statelessness.

Dokku - Docker powered mini-Heroku in around 100 lines of Bash