Apple iCloud vs. Google App Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apple iCloud
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Apple iCloud is a document management software offering from Apple. It includes features such as access to music, photos, calendars, contacts, and documents, and it is built into every new iOS device.
$0.99
per month
Google App Engine
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Google App Engine is Google Cloud's platform-as-a-service offering. It features pay-per-use pricing and support for a broad array of programming languages.
$0.05
Per Hour Per Instance
Pricing
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Editions & Modules
50GB
$0.99
per month
200GB
$2.99
per month
2TB
$9.99
per month
Starting Price
$0.05
Per Hour Per Instance
Max Price
$0.30
Per Hour Per Instance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Considered Both Products
Apple iCloud
Chose Apple iCloud
Google Drive is clunky in my opinion. I feel like OneDrive syncs with my PC better.
Chose Apple iCloud
Overall they are lightyears above Androids. Most companies are moving to only allow Apple devices because of how simple they are to manage and upgrade
Chose Apple iCloud
The biggest thing is Apple doesn't lose versions and changes. With Office 365 and various Google corporate programs, they would track versions — but not well. If someone sat with a file open and later closed it after a colleague had made changes, some of those changes would get …
Chose Apple iCloud
Competitively priced, sometimes less expensive depending on storage needs. Apple iCloud is much easier to use on a macintosh computer since it is built into the operating system.
Chose Apple iCloud
As I have mentioned, the seamless integration across Apple's ecosystem is what keeps us using this product. However, the robust value of the Microsoft 365 Business Premium suite and functionality of their AI companion - Copilot - makes it superior at an organization level. The …
Chose Apple iCloud
For me Apple iCloud is the superior choice. Google Drive is acceptable but it feels much less safe (to me). I disliked MS Azure and would never use that system.
Chose Apple iCloud
Apple iCloud allows to track devices when lost and uses end-to-end encryption for data such as iMessages of Health data. It also includes features of shared albums to optimize storage and can access these items through any Apple device in a quick and efficient way.
Chose Apple iCloud
Egnyte was a good system, but there were two things that I didn't like. One, once your data was in their server, it was in their server. It came across as you did not have control or even ownership of it anymore - plus you had to maintain the payments to them, or it was all …
Chose Apple iCloud
Dropbox is more universal but has a higher price point that Apple iCloud and google while mid price point offers more options in software that allows for file editing and sharing directly in the document. Apple iCloud does not have that on offer. Apple iCloud is the lowest …
Chose Apple iCloud
Nowadays local storage are having a lot of bottleneck and upgrading process require time and money, iCloud are one of the safest and most secure platforms, its End User License Policy is in favor of customer and reliability. Apple iCloud collaboratively works with iOS and macOS …
Chose Apple iCloud
Google Drive is similar to Apple iCloud, but since I prefer Apple products and have operated within the Apple ecosystem for many years, I use iCloud. Some clients who don't use Apple share documents with me in Google Drive so I have experience with the product, but I prefer …
Chose Apple iCloud
Dropbox is the king of cloud environments, and where Apple iCloud should go to. I have tried others but don't even remember their names now. We have our own personal cloud as well. I have used cloud environments since 2007 and would love to see Apple iCloud step up to a full …
Chose Apple iCloud
While I have to use Dropbox on occasion, I greatly prefer to use iCloud for file sharing. I also have used Google's Apps, and because I'm a Mac/iPhone user, iCloud has more easily fit into the normal routine of what I'm already doing and using. Dropbox has some minor features …
Chose Apple iCloud
Apple iCloud is specially made for iOS devices. Nothing and no one will ever be able to service an Apple product's needs better than Apple themselves. The Apple iCloud software is designed specifically for iOS devices, ease of use, and mindless security for automatic backups. …
Chose Apple iCloud
The basic premise among these is the same. Where Apple iCloud stands apart for our team is that there is not a separate app to be downloaded to access these features on most phones or tablets (most of our staff has iPhones, and we provide iPads). This allows everyone to obtain …
Chose Apple iCloud
The security and functionality of iCloud beats out any other products I've tried. While two-factor authentication is available elsewhere, Apple seems to take security a step further with notifications across all devices. In addition, the pricing is right - the low cost of 1TB …
Chose Apple iCloud
We have found that Google Backup & Sync and Apple iCloud between them have all the bases covered. While Google is excellent for many things, as an Apple-centric environment, we utilize both systems. Between them, we have been able to reduce our expensive on-prem file storage …
Chose Apple iCloud
Overall, iCloud performs quite well against some of its larger competitors. In my opinion, iCloud may be better suited for personal and social sharing compared to business cloud platforms like OneDrive and Google Drive. iCloud is incredibly strong if your organization is fully …
Chose Apple iCloud
Did not evaluate other products like Apple iCloud....
Chose Apple iCloud
Amazon AWS interface is clunky and too unintuitive for me. It's like going from a Mac to a Windows machine. YUCK. I realize that Apple iCloud is really just relying on Amazon AWS servers for data storage but it's so much nicer to work with the Apple interface for my daily data …
Chose Apple iCloud
They are different platforms but both reliable and easily used by those who need to access and use it. I am a happy customer for both Apple iCloud and Boomr and would highly recommend them to anyone who is looking to use and purchase something to give them the reassurance and …
Chose Apple iCloud
One Drive can allow users to collaborate in realtime and rare crashes on documents. The storage is very generous, and pricing for business, especially non-profits, is fair. One Drive also allows for better photo storage for us as a school. We can keep yearbook items and also …
Chose Apple iCloud
Already a part of the Apple ecosystem, so if it suits our needs, we will use it. We have a Department shared Dropbox account specifically for sharing large projects with vendors, so Apple iCloud is for lighter internal projects such as shared spreadsheets for project …
Chose Apple iCloud
Apple iCloud is extremely similar to Google Drive. You’re able to access files from anywhere, even a PC, without needing to be on the device where the file was originally created.
Chose Apple iCloud
iCloud is probably the best option for someone who uses primarily Apple devices and services. If you are multi-platform in your technology use I would make sure you test out the free version of iCloud before you make the switch, Apple likes to play nice with Apple, which means …
Google App Engine
Chose Google App Engine
simpler and cheaper sums up the benefits. AWS became too bureaucratic while Google App Engine made he process easier to setup. Again, I just spent a few minutes to setup a simple app, setup a budget, add my credit card and have it up and running. Google is captivating its user …
Chose Google App Engine
For our organization, we selected Google App Engine which provides a reliable and efficient way to create and deploy apps moreover it supports a lot of languages and provides automatic debugging of code which enables us to deploy code to production as soon as development is …
Chose Google App Engine
If you have a small team which is also responsible for development of the product then surely go for it. And if you have a larger team with dedicated person to take care of deployments. Go for cheaper options such as compute engine or AWS (be sure to do your research on pricing …
Chose Google App Engine
We prefer Google App Engine over Linode when need to hosting applications for R&D and Testing. Since the deployment has much less configuration.
Chose Google App Engine
It's the manageability of the Google App Engine which made it a better option in our case.
It's quite straightforward to deploy on App-Engine.
No worries for monitoring setup
Chose Google App Engine
You can create and scale Kubernetes clusters quickly, but you have to keep an eye on that cluster. In-App Engine, you don't have to worry about infrastructure, but in some scenarios, Kubernetes fits better.
Chose Google App Engine
Google App Engine is the first product we picked up to store the mass data. Later we came to know that, firebase database is also similar to Google App Engine. But still, we didn't step into it. We will try it later.
Chose Google App Engine
Azure App Service is in par with Google App Engine although you may want to use Azure App Service if you are integrating with other Microsoft IT components, for example SQL Server. Google App Engine is great when in long run, you will be using Google cloud components, for …
Chose Google App Engine
App Engine is a much more streamlined system than EC2. There is a fundamental difference between them, but they are used for basically the same thing as far a I could tell -- to serve applications EC2 is certainly more complicated, but if offers more machine-level control if …
Chose Google App Engine
Google App Engine is very easy to use and mostly up to date makes it compatible with all old and new devices. The applications are very interactive and the prices are accessible for most users. The prices tend to get slightly expensive as we head on towards higher …
Chose Google App Engine
The two giants are Google and Amazon. Both are very similar however Google App Engine allows you to deploy your web applications through platforms like Python where as if you're using AWS, you have full control on the operating system services. Google is good because you pay as …
Chose Google App Engine
We were on another much smaller cloud provider and decided to make the switch for several reasons - stability, breadth of services, and security. In reviewing options, GCP provided the best mixtures of meeting our needs while also balancing the overall cost of the service as …
Chose Google App Engine
We commonly decide between App Service, Elastic Beanstalk, and App Engine. Normally, we do not have a strong preference for the services, it really comes down to whether or not there are other factors drawing us toward a particular platform. In the case of App Engine, it is a …
Chose Google App Engine
I think that Microsoft and Amazon are simply investing more in their offerings, and there are a bunch of cool PaaS solutions out there as well. Google App Engine is solid, and is probably the right choice for some projects. But ultimately one should evaluate each platform …
Chose Google App Engine
Azure - too Windows. Do not want IIS or Windows OS. AWS - too much configuration for the tasks at hand.
Chose Google App Engine
Google Apps is great for environments where the need for a more robust platform is not necessary if you are looking to have email and cloud collaboration enablement of your working staff. From the stand point of using both, I can see the value of both but it really depends on …
Chose Google App Engine
AWS and Heroku are both great, and I use them both extensively for different projects. Google App Engine was chosen because it is much more innovative than AWS, and because Heroku specializes in Ruby on Rails. Even though Heroku supports Java and other services, we feel Google …
Chose Google App Engine
With GAE it's a matter of "code your app and deploy it". You don't care on what servers or on how many servers it runs. System administration is done for you. With AWS you still have to be a system administrator with good knowledge and undestanding of load balancers, database …
Chose Google App Engine
You can spawn up your own cluster using Kubernetes or Container Engine which will scale automatically when configured properly, but you have to keep an eye on that cluster. In App Engine you don't have to worry about it at all, just ship your code and it will run.
Chose Google App Engine
We chose Google App Engine because it supplies the most infrastructure per dollar spent. It's much more expensive to use Amazon EC2 to scale to over a million users. Also, the engine's narrow language support system, while somewhat limiting, makes getting started quickly much …
Chose Google App Engine
Heroku allows for more flexibility, but GAE gives you more APIs and features by default, whereas Heroku might require you to implement them yourself.
Chose Google App Engine
  • No management of operating system
  • Cheaper
Chose Google App Engine
We left Lotus Notes for the (more versatile) Google Apps. We could never recommend the closed architecture of Lotus Notes. We have evaluated Office 365 and believe the product is compelling. So compelling, that we may consider a platform change…
Features
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud
8.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Google App Engine
-
Ratings
Versioning8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
File search7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync9.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud
8.4
Ratings
3% below category average
Google App Engine
-
Ratings
User and role management7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
File organization8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Device management9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud
9.2
Ratings
6% above category average
Google App Engine
-
Ratings
Performance9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Reliability9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Reports8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Apple iCloud
-
Ratings
Google App Engine
9.5
Ratings
20% above category average
Ease of building user interfaces00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Platform management overhead00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Platform access control00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Development environment creation00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Development environment replication00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Issue recovery00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Small Businesses
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 3.8 out of 10
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.4 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apple iCloudGoogle App Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
iCloud is also great to keep access to photos synced across devices. Ex: I can snap a photo at a job site and have access to that photo on my desktop when I return to my office. I can then drop the photo into a document that is stored in iCloud and have instant access to that document on my iPad at a client's office later in the day. Seamless transitions make life much easier.
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Google App Engine is especially well suited for situations where there is a variable workload during the day, e.g. inbound task processing with task queues. In this situation queues can be setup with parameters governing the process speed/scaling which allows you to easily balance performance with cost and meet a good balance.
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Pros
  • Syncing files, appointments, Notes and contacts. If I'm away from home, and set an appointment using my phone, that appointment automatically updates real time to my home laptop and vice-versa.
  • It stores files (e.g photos) nicely
  • Once it's set up, it's fairly easy to use.
Read full review
  • Building an application that uses Google's Authentication, means users no longer need to remember an different user id and password. Once they are logged into to Google, they can seamlessly access your application hosted on Google App Engine.
  • Google App Engine automatically scales up and down. SO if your application receives a spike in user traffic, App Engine automatically launches additional instances of your application to cater for the increased traffic. Once App Engine detects that the spike is usage is over, it automatically scales down to handle the current traffic.
  • Google App Engine can be easily integrated with Google Cloud SQL, Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage etc, so that you can build out a full application using one or more of Google's Cloud Platform products.
Read full review
Cons
  • Customization - iCloud is great at the stuff it does well. But it lacks features that some competitors (in Google Drive or Dropbox) do really well. API support for third-party apps is really great for some other people.
  • Remote use - Managing or accessing information from iCloud while not on one of your logged-in apple devices can sometimes be an issue. From a work computer for example. It doable, but the experience is much less user-friendly.
  • Ability to edit documents on the cloud similar to google docs or some other competitors
Read full review
  • For beginners, there is a learning curve that can be reduced by decluttering the functionalities.
  • For much big migrations it takes to a lot of time to deploy which can be reduced.
  • The scaling of applications based on the user count is not seamless and it requires improvement.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
It's so seamless that I can't imagine another product doing a better job synchronizing all of my devices. I simply do not think about it at all. Everything happens behind the scenes and I'm confident that Apple keeps my data safe and secure. I'm a happy customer as far as this is concerned. I have not had a bad experience with this service.
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App Engine is a solid choice for deployments to Google Cloud Platform that do not want to move entirely to a Kubernetes-based container architecture using a different Google product. For rapid prototyping of new applications and fairly straightforward web application deployments, we'll continue to leverage the capabilities that App Engine affords us.
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Usability
While it may be great to use with other Apple products, I find it's an absolutist-style workflow to be debilitating and to lead to many problems. When you sign into the cloud, it completely takes over your device in many ways that you don't notice at first until there is a problem.
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I had to revisit the UI after a year of just setting up and forgetting. The UI got some improvements but the amount of navigation we have to go through to setup a new app has increased but also got easier to setup. Gemini now is integrated and make getting answers faster
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Performance
Occasionally, large files that haven't yet been synced require a few minutes to pull down but I've rarely noticed delays. It does a good job of keeping data cached on my local machines while updating them with changes from other machines transparently.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
I never used Apple iCloud support, but have never needed to do so. It has become more of a personal issue with computers in my organization, where the business solution has been with Dropbox. I do have to admit when my Mac went down, having things on Apple iCloud did help to get things restored. However, since I had more than one photo file for my Business and Personal data, I was not able to recover my Business Photos. Apple iCloud should have been able to do this.
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Good amount of documentation available for Google App Engine and in general there is large developer community around Google App Engine and other products it interacts with. Lastly, Google support is great in general. No issues so far with them.
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Alternatives Considered
As I have mentioned, the seamless integration across Apple's ecosystem is what keeps us using this product. However, the robust value of the Microsoft 365 Business Premium suite and functionality of their AI companion - Copilot - makes it superior at an organization level. The same could be said for Google AI (Gemini) as well as their cloud services like Drive.
Read full review
App Engine is a much more streamlined system than EC2. There is a fundamental difference between them, but they are used for basically the same thing as far a I could tell -- to serve applications EC2 is certainly more complicated, but if offers more machine-level control if that's what you need. It can tend to cost more as well. App Engine is far more straightforward but there are limitations if you need to change the environment. But even then, Google Compute Engine also compares to EC2 and stays within GCP.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • The ability to access saved content across devices no matter where I am located reduces missed opportunities to share and collaborate.
  • The version history has allowed my team to re-visit previous renditions when errors occur - saving valuable time determining the root cause.
  • The cloud reduces the number of physical documents one must remember when traveling for work.
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  • App Engine can scale basically infinitely so our users can always expect fast responsiveness.
  • App Engine has saved us money by only using the resources we need when we need them.
  • The security and IAM policies surrounding App Engine have saved a lot of head aches.
Read full review
ScreenShots