Google App Engine vs Google Kubernetes Engine: What are the differences?

Google App Engine: Build web applications on the same scalable systems that power Google applications. 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; Google Kubernetes Engine: Deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications on Kubernetes, powered by Google Cloud. Container Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machine cluster, scaling your application, and operational logistics like logging, monitoring, and health management.

Google App Engine belongs to "Platform as a Service" category of the tech stack, while Google Kubernetes Engine can be primarily classified under "Containers as a Service".

Some of the features offered by Google App Engine are:

• 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.

On the other hand, Google Kubernetes Engine provides the following key features:

• Docker support - Improve the predictability of your deployments with Docker containers. Containers make it easy to deploy applications across environments.
• Better ops - Give ops a better system, starting with a managed compute cluster. Container Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machines and operational logistics like logging, monitoring, and health management.
• Declarative management - Use declarative syntax to define your application requirements. Container Engine will actively manage your application, ensuring your containers are running and scheduling additional as needed.

"Easy to deploy" is the primary reason why developers consider Google App Engine over the competitors, whereas "Powered by kubernetes" was stated as the key factor in picking Google Kubernetes Engine.

According to the StackShare community, Google App Engine has a broader approval, being mentioned in 482 company stacks & 345 developers stacks; compared to Google Kubernetes Engine, which is listed in 184 company stacks and 50 developer stacks.