When it comes to hosting a server online, you usually want to find the right company that fits your needs. I personally have used most of the cloud providers. I find Google's cloud environment user-friendly. You can scale your projects accordingly, and you will know how much it will cost due to their transparent pricing.
Pros
Cost
User friendly
Options
Cons
Possibly more options to match competitors.
N/A
Likelihood to Recommend
Whether you are looking for a cloud provider for a small or large project, Google's compute engine suits both. You won't have a problem with cost because Google's pricing is affordable and near the same as AWS.
For a very long period, we have been utilising Google Compute Engine. Our application data is hosted on virtual machines that we have been building.We have utilised it to host Vector Databases in addition to our front-end and back-end databases.For even quicker processing, we have been employing the virtual machines offered by the TPU, and the greatest part is that they are always 100% up and running.
Pros
Hosting application frontend, backend, or any such things in your Virtual machine.
As we know today's generation is about GenAI, and vector stores are a huge part of it, computer engines are also able to host the Vector DB's.
The security scans provided by the compute engine are also very good and helpful.
The snapshots feature is also amazing, if you want to delete a VM always try to take snapshots of it with the date.
Cons
VM creation can be made simpler. For the very first time, user might feel a bit uneasy about it.
Price calculation for a particular VM maybe it is sometimes not exactly correct.
Subnetworks are not supported it should support it.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's ideal for you, as I've already shown, if you wish to host front-end, back-end, vector databases, and other website components.It provides 100% uptime due to its security, which is essential for both new and existing businesses.However, Firebase is also an excellent front-end option because it comes from Google.Because GCP provides so many options, it can be a little confusing for beginning users and is quite pricey and technical.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Engineering (Information Technology & Services company, 51-200 employees)
We are using Google Compute Engine for running our workloads with respect to scaling our platform using templates. The ease of creating the compute engine with compatibility of Operating systems and customisation features according to our requirements.
Pros
Easily customizable userdata scripts in compute engines
The integration with other services using RBAC is easy and quick
Community support for vm images if excellent
Cons
The UI can be improved. Difficult to find stuff if one is not experienced with GCP.
The cost options can be made much more competitive.
Likelihood to Recommend
For monolithic workloads Google Compute Engine can be used but for microservices where services need to be decoupled, it becomes difficult to use.
VU
Verified User
Consultant in Engineering (Information Technology & Services company, 5001-10,000 employees)
We are using the compute engine to host our web applications frontend and backend, with jaeger for tracing of api calls from backend. We also are using Grafana monitoring tool for monitoring and observability of our gen ai chatbots metric in other vm. The best about it is the ease to create and configure the vm. Configuration of firewall from ui is very easy which is helpful.
Pros
configuration of firewall from ui is very easy.
can change the name of VM. Sometime the default name got saved which is very confusing, so we can change the VM name after stop it.
addition of extra disk space can be done in few clicks.
I got discount on VM original price.
Cons
I find the documentation a lit bit hard to understand for few times.
It will be good if I can change the VM name without stopping it.
Sometime the SSH feels slow and looks like its lagging.
Likelihood to Recommend
Its best suited if we are working with other google services, the integration of it with other google services is very easy to implement. If you are using other cloud services then the integration can get little hard, and may find some error due to different cloud platform. Its perform is good with google services.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (Information Technology & Services company, 51-200 employees)
Google Compute provides solutions to build dynamic websites and apps for clients without consuming much time. The tool has many features to build a customized apps according to our clients needs. It works on many programming languages and gives us option to build an app based on clients primary requirements.
Pros
Multiple Web Apps Options
Prebuilt Samples
Customization
Cons
Documentation For First Time Users
More Implementation Would be Handy
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Compute Engine is so easy to implement and run. It doesn't require much knowledge to build an app since they provide multiple options to choose from with their prebuilt sample list. We can easily make customization on any website app we built for our client according to their needs and make changes if required.
We use Google Compute Engine to host websites and APIs for small businesses. It lets us adjust resources based on how much traffic our clients get, making sure their sites and apps run smoothly without them needing to deal with server management. We pick different types of virtual machines depending on what each client needs, e.g a simple blog or an online store.
Pros
Easy to scale
Transparant costs
Wide range of services
Cons
Feature parity with AWS
Improved security tools
Likelihood to Recommend
Hosting dynamic websites where traffic fluctuates - easy scaling. Running compute-heavy backend processes, like data analysis, to benefit from customizable VM sizes. Creating dev and testing environments quickly. Can be overkill for some solutions.
VU
Verified User
Director in Professional Services (Computer & Network Security company, 11-50 employees)
We use Google Compute Engine instances as our main servers to host our services and applications that are externally or internally used across the whole company. They are easy to use, configure, replicate, update, secure the machines, etc.
Currently, we face no problems with this service and everything is working more than fine.
Pros
Running services and applications
Secure access
Easy replication and backups
Cons
It is totally easy to use
Would be nice if prices drop a little bit
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Compute Engine instances are an easy way to quickly run your applications with good performance, security, and functionality.
With Google Compute Engine instances, you don't need to worry much about machine maintenance and upgrades, and instance monitoring is easy and clear since Google provides cool dashboards to check machine status and notify you about required updates or changes.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (Information Technology & Services company, 51-200 employees)
A scalable and flexible setup to quickly get our apps up and running without dropping tons of cash upfront, paying only for what we actually use with that pay-as-you-go thing and resources automatically scaling to match demand. High availability comes baked in through load balancing across Google's global infrastructure, with security features and custom VM configs letting us tailor things to our app's needs. With growth, it is possible to integrate with Google's full suite of cloud services like analytics, machine learning, serverless, etc. - to keep adding on capabilities while still focusing on building cool stuff instead of dealing with infrastructure headaches. Comparable to AWS EC2.
Pros
Scaling - whether it's traffic spikes or just steady growth, Google Compute Engine's auto-scaling makes sure we've got the compute power we need without any manual juggling acts
Load balancing - Keeping things smooth with that load balancing across multiple VMs, so our users don't have to deal with slow load times or downtime even when things get crazy busy
Customizability - Mix and match configs for CPU, RAM, storage and whatnot to suit our specific app needs
Cons
The pricing model can get a bit convoluted at times
While the integration with other Google Cloud services is pretty slick, linking up Google Compute Engine with services outside of Google's ecosystem isn't always smooth sailing
The learning curve for more advanced Google Compute Engine features can be pretty steep at times
Likelihood to Recommend
If your startup has a web app or SaaS offering that needs to scale quickly based on user demand, Google Compute Engine's auto-scaling capabilities make it a great fit. You can easily spin up more VMs during traffic spikes without overprovisioning resources. For data-intensive workloads like big data processing or training machine learning models, Google Compute Engine's flexible compute instances with GPU support can provide cost-effective scalability. If you have a short-term project or MVP with minimal scaling needs, the overhead of setting up Google Compute Engine may not be worth it.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Research & Development (Marketing & Advertising company, 11-50 employees)
We use it for microservices that has burst processing demands - they require lots of processing power for very short periods of time, thus requiring powerful hardware that, for most of the time, goes on without use. We wanted a cloud solution to avoid the hardware and infrastructure inherent to that scenario.
Pros
Better interface than AWS
Service has been very reliable
Excellent security policy structure
Cons
Documentation could be improved
Sometimes is hard to estimate how much we are going to spend
Likelihood to Recommend
I would say that it is very helpful for scenarios with iregular processing power requirements, as situations where the application have burst of usage, or that have demands that change during the year or between the seasons. On the other hand, applications that have a very stable load can easily become too expensive for cloud usage.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (Information Technology & Services company, 11-50 employees)
I have used Google Compute Engine for testing and deploying SAP S/4 Hana appliance for the internal training and learning purpose in Google cloud platform environment.
Pros
VM Instances
Storage
Bare metal solution
Cons
Quota limit for Compute Engine API Persistent Disk SSD
Quota limit for Compute Engine API A2 CPU
Quota limit for Compute Engine API N2 CPU
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Compute Engine will be suited for the scenarios with the quota limit provided as default and less appropriate for the scenarios on deployments with quota limit increase request need to raise to Google Cloud support.
