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This is mind-blowingly great, not only for them -- compete with Google App engine, and get people hooked on AWS early -- but also for young entrepreneurs, who c

by seldo 16y ago

This is mind-blowingly great, not only for them -- compete with Google App engine, and get people hooked on AWS early -- but also for young entrepreneurs, who can get a professional dev env for $0 and a year to see if their idea works. I think this will also open the gates to developers outside the US -- $50/month for hosting might not seem too much to an American, but in other countries it can be a real barrier.

brown9-2 16y ago
I agree with this - I have a hobby project I was considering writing for GAE (since I could run it for free), but being able to deploy on AWS for free means I could bypass having to write my program custom-fit for AppEngine's datastore and having to wrap my head around that.
phjohnst 16y ago
I was just about to write this. I was too considering GAE to play around with a few ideas, but I would much rather deploy on AWS if it's free and without having to work around Google's specs. Great move Amazon.
- ShabbyDoo 16y ago
  I suspect Google would argue that the benefit of living within the GAE constraints is that your app will scale-out without you worrying about the number of boxes required, the schemes employed for cache clustering, etc.
slowpoison 16y ago
Having dealt with GAE for a while, I can say that EC2 and GAE don't create much competition for each other. Granted that user-facing result is the same - applications, yet both are a completely different model of doing applications. To that extent, I imagine developers choosing their respective platform out of these two will have different mindsets or requirements. In GAE, you have the privilege of bypassing the administrative stuff - creating/deleting/configuring instances, choosing software, amongst other things. Quite useful for some app categories, like web-apps/web-services for verticals, where you want to concentrate on the business logic and the rest doesn't matter as long as the app works. EC2 is great too, and attracts developers who require more freedom in terms of software architecture, and choice of components, but comes with a the non-trivial administrative costs. (I do imagine EC2 consultants being in-demand, sooner or later.) I think both models have potential to succeed, and should be able to nicely co-exist. This free-to-jumpstart approach is perhaps targeted just to stir up AWS demand.
- netcan 16y ago
  There are many instances of overlap. An Amazon user will use that and an GAE user will choose GAE for essentially the same projects a user of neither may consider both. "Toy projects" will often be in the last category. The parent is saying that subsequent projects might be in the first categories.

by seldo 16y ago

brown9-2 16y ago

I agree with this - I have a hobby project I was considering writing for GAE (since I could run it for free), but being able to deploy on AWS for free means I could bypass having to write my program custom-fit for AppEngine's datastore and having to wrap my head around that.

phjohnst 16y ago

I was just about to write this. I was too considering GAE to play around with a few ideas, but I would much rather deploy on AWS if it's free and without having to work around Google's specs. Great move Amazon.

ShabbyDoo 16y ago
I suspect Google would argue that the benefit of living within the GAE constraints is that your app will scale-out without you worrying about the number of boxes required, the schemes employed for cache clustering, etc.

slowpoison 16y ago

Having dealt with GAE for a while, I can say that EC2 and GAE don't create much competition for each other. Granted that user-facing result is the same - applications, yet both are a completely different model of doing applications. To that extent, I imagine developers choosing their respective platform out of these two will have different mindsets or requirements. In GAE, you have the privilege of bypassing the administrative stuff - creating/deleting/configuring instances, choosing software, amongst other things. Quite useful for some app categories, like web-apps/web-services for verticals, where you want to concentrate on the business logic and the rest doesn't matter as long as the app works. EC2 is great too, and attracts developers who require more freedom in terms of software architecture, and choice of components, but comes with a the non-trivial administrative costs. (I do imagine EC2 consultants being in-demand, sooner or later.) I think both models have potential to succeed, and should be able to nicely co-exist. This free-to-jumpstart approach is perhaps targeted just to stir up AWS demand.

netcan 16y ago
There are many instances of overlap. An Amazon user will use that and an GAE user will choose GAE for essentially the same projects a user of neither may consider both. "Toy projects" will often be in the last category. The parent is saying that subsequent projects might be in the first categories.