What is better for hosting Java development: Aptana? Google App Engine? Slice Host?

Question

I share the benefits of developing Java (nonprofit) webapps and deploying for something like Aptana or Google Cloud, or just coming with a Slice Host account. Tomcat or Jetty and MySQL are really my only big requirements. Aptana and the Google App Engine come with some great Eclipse deployment options, but does scalability really matter without a large user base for applications?

In addition, both Aptana and the Google App Engine seem to be in their infancy, so I wonder if there will be too many restrictions, even for a little time development. Does anyone have experience with them?

Answer 1

I can't speak with Aptana, but the Google App Engine is a radically different development experience from what you get with something like Slicehost. It scales differently (i.e. you have the ability to work with much larger loads), but it is also completely different from starting your own web application server (e.g. Glassfish, Tomcat, JBoss, etc.) And coding using standard Java tools.

Using Slicehost or any hosted solution, it’s easy to set up a local development environment that accurately simulates what you will run on the server. The same software, the same VM, maybe in the same version of Linux. You can even move to a different host and still be able to configure the same environment.

With the Google App Engine, you will find that you are building an emulator (in fact, you do not run BigTable locally), so there is no individual correspondence between your environment and the server. There is no alternative place to move and work in the same environment. In addition, some, perhaps many of the popular Java frameworks that you can use to develop web applications, either do not work at all (for example) or will not work out of the box ( for more details, see here ).

I do not stoop on the App Engine, in fact, I think it is really great. If the demand for your applications is relatively small, and therefore you do not need huge requirements for scaling, but your traffic is not so low that you easily fit into the free manual on Google, then I'm probably inclined to a hosted solution, for example Slicehost instead.

Answer 2

I am using slicehost and I am pleased with the result so far. It’s easy to update the slice (I had to do it already once) and it’s easy to roll back to fragment backup (I also had to do this). I accept Tomcat and MySQL.

Answer 3

Remember that the Google App Engine does not give you the full JRE. For example, you cannot create threads directly. In addition, I found that the performance of the GAE repository is too slow - I constantly go to the timeout. In general, this is not a real solution for hosting applications. You need to adapt the application to a great extent to make it work on GAE.

Answer 4

I would suggest using Amazon Web Services. You get the power of the cloud without limits for your application, unlike the App Engine.