When you run a business each man hour of work costs money. While appengine charges a premium, it saves a lot of the overhead work of running a service. Think a

When you run a business each man hour of work costs money. While appengine charges a premium, it saves a lot of the overhead work of running a service. Think about it this way. When you use appengine Google has an sre making sure your application is up and running. It makes sure it auto scales up and down. Deals with zero day security updates. And gives you a release rollout procedure. Logging is hooked in as well. Sure you can do all of that, but at most companies it's not unheard of to cost about 50-100$/hour of SWE work.