Which web development framework works best with Google App Engine?

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+8 Q:

Which web development framework works best with Google App Engine?

Now that Google allows Java on App Engine, I'm wondering what effect this has on a choice of web framework for App Engine.

I realize Google provides the webapp framework which is pretty barebones.
And the .96 version of django that's available for App Engine is restrictive.
web2py burns up resources, from what I've heard.
Rails (now available) can't use ActiveRecord, ActiveResource, restclient, rmagick.

Is there something I'm missing - do any frameworks work well on App Engine?

+1 A:

Try Spring. It supports JPA and JDO.

There's even a Python version for Spring now.

duffymo 2009-04-11 18:20:15

Never occurred to me to use a Java web framework. But that's an idea. Thanks. Was hoping for something more concise than Java - Python, Ruby.

karl 2009-04-11 18:23:38

You probably should clarify and specify Spring MVC, Spring has a big portfolio of projects.

Jon 2009-04-11 18:29:44

I plan to try Java and Spring there. It's early, but that's the best approach IMO.

duffymo 2009-04-11 18:30:06

@Jon - Yes, I wasn't clear enough on that. Thanks, Jon.

duffymo 2009-04-11 18:30:37

duffymo, could you clarify why you think it's the best approach? is that because you're a Java guy and you want a Java solution because that's what you know best? Or is it because you've considered all languages and frameworks? Not trying to put you on the spot. Just want to clarify where you are.

karl 2009-04-11 18:36:12

I'm a Java guy, and when I read "Google allows Java on App Engine" I might have jumped to the conclusion that you were looking for a Java solution. I don't have an ax to grind. I can't speak with authority on Python because I'm just learning it now. I downloaded both Python and Java SDKs to try.

duffymo 2009-04-11 18:39:30

duffmo, that's cool - just wasn't sure where you were coming from. i've worked with Java in the past too. but ever since getting exposed to python and ruby, I don't have much desire to use Java unless it provides obvious benefits over Python and Ruby. I'm going to check out Spring (not Struts)

karl 2009-04-11 18:43:41

I'm going the other way. I love Java and Spring, but the more I read about Python the more I like it. You can choose object-oriented or functional programming; it's got closures and terrific library support. I hope I can master it.

duffymo 2009-04-11 20:55:29

Check out http://diveintopython.org/toc/index.html

karl 2009-04-12 03:41:35

Thanks, but I've got a dead tree copy of "Core Python". I think it's great.

duffymo 2009-04-12 11:08:28

If you are looking for Python, then Django would be your best bet.

TheTXI 2009-04-11 18:25:54

Django on GAE seems unwieldy. I like the Django framework a lot. But when I tried to integrate one of my Django apps into GAE I spent a few weeks on it and it got nowhere. Did you have any luck?

karl 2009-04-11 18:38:12

Try Appengine Patch for Django: http://code.google.com/p/app-engine-patch/ . It's a single-developer project and adds some overhead, but is definitely the simplest way possible to use any Django over 0.96.

Ben 2009-12-22 01:17:03

Struts 2 is purported to work on Google App Engine (at least in terms of the example applications). Follow this thread:

http://www.nabble.com/Google-App-Engine-support--td22972179.html

It appears that there are some issues with Sitemesh in terms of templating, but if you're using JSP you should be ok.

It's a good choice as a web application framework goes.

Jon 2009-04-11 18:32:48

I'm not up to date on the Java world but I thought Struts had fallen out of favor - Spring seems more the talk of the town these days. Do you think this is unjustified?

karl 2009-04-11 18:40:14

Struts is pretty much legacy, Struts 2 is the successor which is a merge of Webwork and Struts. Having used both that and Spring MVC commercially I would say that Struts 2 is far more flexible and advanced as far as a web application framework goes.

Jon 2009-04-11 22:47:54

Two other web apps include Stripes, which is fairly popular at the moment, and Grails - I've just started with this on Google App Engine, but not got very far yet...

Jon 2009-04-12 00:24:25

I see. I'm obviously out of date. I didn't know about the update to Struts 2. Grails might be a good option because I like Groovy as an alternative to Ruby. It's much more concise than writing pure Java. I'll have to read up on Stripes. Never heard of it. Have you used it?

karl 2009-04-12 01:56:50

+5 A:

Personally, I have found Python to be more fun. That's just me. However there are several commited Java developers out there that will appreciate the Java support in GAE. Furthermore, supporting Java was a good choice by Google since it will allow the GAE platform to potentially host many other languages. It's obviously a little early to expect all JVM based languages to run on GAE, but the future looks promising. For now we can look at what is and isn't working by taking a look at this GAE Java Group Page.

Coming back to Python, I think small web applications will work great with the built-in webapp framework. Other applications will benefit more from Django 1.0. Have a look at the GAE articles under the frameworks section for a few good reads on this. In any case, you will undoubtedly have restrictions in any of your choices since most web frameworks are designed with relational databases in mind ... which datastore/bigtable is not. Furthermore, the GAE platform has to be sandboxed for security reasons which also restrict you to some extent. Hope this helps.

fuentesjr 2009-04-11 18:35:00

Thanks for the link. Didn't know there was a separate Google Group for the Java version. And the articles link is excellent. I obviously have some reading to do on this. thanks.

karl 2009-04-11 18:46:25

No problemo. Glad I could help.

fuentesjr 2009-04-11 18:55:21

I compiled a list of App Engine Frameworks for Python here: http://code.google.com/p/tipfy/wiki/AppEngineFrameworks

moraes 2009-12-01 09:16:51

+1 A:

I don't know exactly the full range of options, but I can tell you a couple of things off the bat...

Google Apps is built on top of / using Django.
Django is pretty much what Google Apps cheer and support, so I'd expect it to integrate with Google Apps better than others.
Google Apps has restrictions built into it that you cannot circumvent (or shouldn't). These limitations are not related to any particular framework, rather they are built into the fabric of Apps, so to speak.
I wouldn't worry much about performance of the framework - try to improve your design/structure, it will certainly payback better.
Google will eventually move to Django 1.0 and newer, plus they are updating Google Apps too.
They do use memcache (or an equivalent) so take that into consideration and utilize it.

Ash 2009-04-11 18:35:42

I think you're wrong about App Engine being built with/on top of Django. Do you have any links to support that statement?

karl 2009-04-11 18:52:03

The performance of the framework is obviously a concern - in the case of web2py, it may cause you to exceed your quotas for the day.

karl 2009-04-11 18:53:41

Google Apps is not the same as Google App Engine.

karl 2009-04-11 18:54:34

Why focus on memcache above all else. That is the only feature of App Engine that you mentioned in your answer. Why?

karl 2009-04-11 18:55:14

I've seen a presentation or two from IO where the presenter (a member of Google App Engine) mentioned it or at least raved about Django and how much they like it.I understand your concert about exceeding quotas.Google Apps - a typo.All else being equal, memchache will give the biggest boost.

Ash 2009-04-11 21:00:36

Django is incorporated into App Engine as an additional option but webapp is Google's native framework.

karl 2009-04-12 03:43:07

Google Apps is not App Engine. App Engine is not built in Django; it merely bundles a version of it in the standard library.

Nick Johnson 2009-04-14 11:30:12

I recommend web.py if you're using Python.

apphacker 2009-04-11 18:53:00

And the reason would be? Because you want other people who like web.py to vote for your answer?

karl 2009-04-11 18:57:00

+1 A:

It really depends on what you want to do. In my experience something small hand made on top of Webob is really good for an API. But for full fledged sites that need templates/sessions/complex routing/caching django is hard to beat.

Take into account that if you huge frameworks (like django 1.0) the first request always takes around 3 seconds to load everything in memory and keeps it there until 15 secs after that request.

And while you shop around for frameworks take into account that:

ORM's don't apply to the platform so basically don't matter.
Fast templates (like Cheetah) won't be fast (or even work) as they can't use c extensions.
Caching might be the most important thing to make everything fast.

Koen Bok 2009-04-11 19:09:49

Well, Google's webapp framework has reqest/response objects so I'm not sure why you would use Webob. Interesting point about ORMs, but I'm not sure what you mean that they don't apply. web2py uses an ORM and it works with GAE although you have to be mindful of the unique character of BigTable.

karl 2009-04-12 03:39:56

@karl Google's webzapp framework actually uses Webob for the request, and a simple StringIO-based class for response.

moraes 2009-12-01 09:24:11

+7 A:

Actually web2py is very light and since ~1.50 on GAE, it caches all bytecode compiled models/views/controllers.

Nevertheless you need to consider that by default is has datastore based sessions and this may add some overhead when compared with framework that do not have sessions working on GAE (at least not by default).

The web2py DAL itself does not add a significant overhead when compared to the naive Google datastore APIs.

mdipierro 2009-04-11 19:54:03

web2py DAL does not handle transactions and references with ancestors. I only spent a couple of minutes looking at it so I don't know about other issues, but these ones are bad enough.

moraes 2009-12-01 09:21:36

I am not sure about references with ancestors but it does handle transactions to the extent that GAE handles transactions. You can in fact put DAL code in GAE run_in_transcation(...)

mdipierro 2009-12-04 05:42:12

I use new framework GAE framework. This is similar with Django, but work on AppEngine.

Best regards!

Anton Danilchenko 2010-03-03 20:44:48

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Which web development framework works best with Google App Engine?

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