Google App Engine + JSON based service + Authentication

Question

I am new to GAE (cloud based development in general actually) and I am looking for some advice.

I am looking to use GAE only as a service (REST + JSON) with my client-side in Sproutcore. I am looking to find a light-weight service-based framework that will provide me with strong security (authentication, protection against XSS etc).

Java or Python is fine, the priority being speed and security.

Does anybody have any ideas on this? Any links to relevant information. I am going through an information overload phase. Any help in this regard would be much appreciated!

Thank you.

Answer 1

How about tipfy, a open source lightweight python-based framework made for GAE?

Its core can be enhanced through usage of extensions.

• Combining some of those extensions would allow you to perform auth against different systems (Google, Facebook, Twitter...) or against your own baked one. An example of this can be found here, source code is available here.

• A really simple sample of JSON rendering is available here.

Of course, other python frameworks run on top of AppEngine. You'll find in the AppEngine-Python google group, a thread discussing pros/cons of most of them.

Considering speed, those links may shed some light on the subject

• Choosing Java vs Python on Google App Engine
• Google AppEngine Language Performance Comparison Followup

Answer 2

proceed with caution if you want to use a framework. since GAE is still evolving, frameworks tend to break. i have tried both tipfy and django on large projects.

http://blog.bygsoft.com/2011/04/27/why-we-should-avoid-tipfy-a-gae-framework/

in many places tipfy tends to just write meaningless (read no value add) python wrappers around what the core gae frameworks provide just causing code bloat.

last i checked, the map reduce package did not work well with tipfy. sorry, i may sound very biased but my experience with tipfy has been average.