Google app engine vs mochahost or similar

Question

Hi to everyone,

I have developed a site with google app engine using python and django, now I have another similar project to develop.

Well I have got some well-known problems using the datastore:

• query: there's no "LIKE CLAUSULE" and GQL is not Sql
• documentation is not so clear and easy to find
• backup database is not so trivial
• django support is not so great (I use google app engine patch)
• I'm just a little scared about when my traffic go "into pay mode"

Now, I hope that this site will have a great number of visitors in my optimistic prevision :) so the question is, can an alternative hosting service offer me a professional service like google app engine?

Is it possible to make a professional web site that works starting from a 'conventional' hosting service?

An other stupid question, but I site like this where is hosted??

I'm a little bit confusing about which kind of hosting chosing...

Thanks for help :)

Answer 1

My individual opinion is that App Engine is ideal for prototyping for these reasons:

• Free. Nowhere else can you run a web app for $0
• Deployment and upgrading is extremely simple
• You don't have to worry about backups or networking or anything besides programming
• GQL is no problem. There are workarounds. It's a reasonable price to pay for free hosting and scaling.

However, once you think your site is popular, and especially if it becomes profitable, App Engine is not ideal.

• Yes it scales. But as your site grows, you always wanting new reports on your data to gain knowledge. This is extremely tough in App Engine. You need case-by-case programming and possibly database changes. That takes time and resources. This is my #1 problem for App Engine for startups or small companies.
• You want to control your backup and restore process
• It is bad business to be locked in to a sole hosting provider
• There is nobody to contact if something goes wrong. Forums schmorums. That's for hobbyists and discussion, not for time-critical problem-solving.

Answer 2

thanks for the answer,

I agree... but it's not easy task to do a porting from appengine and others provider, so for your experience whick hosting service I shoud use, mocha seems to be buget, or others? And if I well understand is better to start from gae or directly from others? You have seen my site, it's seems pro or lag in some feature..

Thanks

Answer 3

If you plan on having something you think will grow decently, maybe you should launch on something like linode or slicehost, where you have a VPS. That you, you control the instance of django, and have full control over your server. That way, your app doesn't have to contain some of hosting-specific code.

Yes, the initial setup for both may be a little bit of a headache, but you'll be able to create something that is a little more portable

Answer 4

really thanks, for link yesterday I "discover" that exist IronPython and seems django compatible, or Ndjango for F#, so I love visual studio which one of best developer enviroments (in my opinion) so a good hosting service for microsoft product?

Thanks again I feel you are really an expert developer, so I take really care of your opinion