"your app can be slashdotted or tweeted by demi moore -- http://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2010/10/mobile-app-creat... -- or perhaps you may need to build/host something on the scale of both the royal wedding blog and event livestream with traffic numbers that are mindblowing -- http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/05/royal-wedding-be... ... these are the reasons for using App Engine. it was not meant as free/cheap generic app-hosting but to provide a premium service that's difficult to get elsewhere in the market. if you're just after the former, there are plenty of options for you."
My take-away is that GAE is hard to justify unless your usage pattern is unpredictable and spike-y. I'm taking the long weekend to give dotcloud a serious test-drive.
I still don't quite understand their market, and honestly I don't think they do either.
If you're expecting insane traffic to begin with, it makes more sense to create your own systems using a more standard stack and not tie yourself to GAE. If you're just some small to medium sized site that gets "slashdotted or tweeted by demi moore", I guess it is nice that your site will automatically scale to serve the millions of unexpected incoming users, but when you're filing for personal bankruptcy due to the unexpected and infinitely scaling GAE bill that comes along with that, how much consolation is the fact that your server stayed up during the rush going to be?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-appengine/obfGjbIkOTI...
"your app can be slashdotted or tweeted by demi moore -- http://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2010/10/mobile-app-creat... -- or perhaps you may need to build/host something on the scale of both the royal wedding blog and event livestream with traffic numbers that are mindblowing -- http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/05/royal-wedding-be... ... these are the reasons for using App Engine. it was not meant as free/cheap generic app-hosting but to provide a premium service that's difficult to get elsewhere in the market. if you're just after the former, there are plenty of options for you."
My take-away is that GAE is hard to justify unless your usage pattern is unpredictable and spike-y. I'm taking the long weekend to give dotcloud a serious test-drive.