Google App Engine vs WebFaction

Question

Possible duplicates: GAE + Python vs Webfaction + Python + django - for a relative new dev

Hello, I am developing one of my hobby project using django-nonrel on google app engine. The basic part of the application is finished. Now for the some advance features I need to use:

1. Comet for Facebook like real time ticker
2. django-filetransfer for storing article with images and serving corresponding image when someone reading article
3. 10-30 minutes of video contents once above two are done (Not decided yet whether there will be any limit of total videos on web application since thinking to make it possible to allow users to upload)

So my questions are:

1. I need comet for each and every user using my application and since GAE is having limitation on creation and free quota for channel creation and maximum rate(6 creations/minute). Is it going to cost me more if I host my application on GAE ? Does other hosting services such as WebFaction and Linode also charge if our application uses reverse Ajax ?
2. Since uploading images with article using django-filetransfers require me to enable billing, Is it the same case with other hosting services ?
3. Is GAE (as compared with WebFaction, linode or any other hosting sites) is cost-effective for application which allows users to upload video contents ?

P.S. Since I have used django-nonrel, hence at this point can easily change my hosting site. Once I start working on above mentioned functionality, it will be difficult for me move from one hosting site to another. Due to which I want to take best possible step. Also, I am from India and here paying 1 unit of Dollar will cost me more than 50 unit of Indian currency. So love to here the best deal with no compromise on performance :-)

Thanks for your time,

Sunil

Answer 1

Google App Engine and webfaction/linode are unrelated beyond the point that they both ultimately host your application.

GAE is a cloud platform-as-service for hosting an app, which usually conforms to an API they expose to you for the individual services you would like to use. They give you the free tier and then make their money by raising the tiers.

Linode is simply a VPS (virtual private server). Its a virtual linux box and you are responsible for setting up the services. There is no API to your individual web service needs. Its just a linux platform for you to play freely. Need apache? nginx? mysql? mongodb? You need to install and configure those services.

Webfaction sits between GAE and linode, in that its also kind of a VPS, kind of shared, and kind of cloud. You get shell access, and it facilitates installing your services as "apps", handling the configuration for you in the control panel. But it too, like linode, is not a cloud platform in the way GAE is. You do not get an API to various services that equal what GAE offers.

App engine gives you the convenience of not having to manage an actual server, but rather focus on managing your app and the resources it requires. But they charge for using more of the services beyond the free tier.

Linode/Webfaction/VPS/... does not charge so specifically per resource. Part of your plan may be unlimited bandwidth, or maybe its 10GB per month, 20GB, etc. Maybe part of your plan is 128/256/512mb ram. You go with the plan you need and sometimes they let you add more storage/memory after the fact. But you are not paying per upload, or per API call, because they have no API.

The idea behind GAE (and similarly Amazon's services) is to provide a scalable platform for your service, to where you think less about hardware and more about adding more resources.