Google App Engine is very cheap compared to just about anything. Small applications benefit because they might be able to fit within the free quotas, and any app will fit when it's just starting out and doesn't have a lot of users. You don't have the fixed monthly cost overhead that a regular hosting service requires.
You always have the free quotas, and since usage is reset to zero every day, at least part of your traffic will always be free. gops's example of a large scale application is about right. If your application is relatively efficient, you can handle an enormous amount of traffic for relatively low cost, giving you a lot of room to figure out how to make money from your idea. And, a huge benefit over other hosting options is if you're featured on the home page of Digg or Slashdot, it automatically scales up the number of servers you're running on to keep up with the traffic. There are many times on the internet where some small site could have gotten a lot of new users had their server been able to cope with a once-in-a-lifetime surge in traffic... you don't have this risk with Google App Engine. The fully automatic scaling is unique in the industry, I think... you could be sipping Tequila on a Mexico beach when a traffic surge comes and be confident that Google is taking care of you :) -Ryan On Apr 1, 4:37 am, Andy <[email protected]> wrote: > Does anyone have rough ballpark estimates on how does GAE's cost > compare to that of commercial hosting? > > For example, the traffic supported by GAE's free quotas -- is that > generally higher or less than the traffic supported by a $5/mo shared > hosting account? > > And what about the traffic supported by a $40/mo VPS account on a > typical web hosting company -- how much would that cost if the site > was hosted on App Engine? > > What about a $200/mo dedicated server hosting -- what's the GAE > equivalent? > > I know it depends on a lot of factors, but if anyone has any ballpark > estimates or experiences they're willing to share I'd really > appreciate it. > > I'm starting a project and try to decide between GAE and standard web > hosting. The project will start small, but if the traffic grows I want > to see which would be a better option for me. GAE is less flexible and > creates a certain amount of lock-in, but at least I want to know if > it'll end up cheaper or more expensive as traffic grows --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
