That's explained here: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/the-appengine-environments#comparing_the_flexible_environment_to_compute_engine https://cloud.goo

That's explained here: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/the-appengine-environments#comparing_the_flexible_environment_to_compute_engine https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/the-appengine-enviro... Most important difference; the app engine is fully managed by Google (so they do security updates etc), with Compute Engine you have to do it yourself.