HN Explorer

Ask HN: Any startups applying for YC funding using the Google App Engine?

9 points by mel_llaguno ↗ HN
I've seen a lot of startups using Rails, but are there any out there that apply for YC funding that are using something more enterprise focused for their application? If you've considered using the GAE and choose something else, what was the deciding factor?

12 comments

[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 37.2 ms ] thread
minalecs
i know simplenote a recent graduate spoke how they used it to scale.
wolfrom
We'll be applying with a project that uses Google App Engine, built with Java. We had originally started with PHP, and had considered Rails, but we found that we were much more comfortable using Java for our product, which retrieves and works with very large sets of data.
nl
I'm considering it (applying, not using AppEngine. If I apply I'll use AppEngine for some parts of it).

I do Java AppEngine work in my day job, so if you have questions let me know.

(When you say "enterprise focused" do you mean your application is enterprise focused, or do you mean GAE/J is? Because there are some issues with using GAE for enterprise software and it's important you have considered them)

mel_llaguno
Can you elaborate? I'd be curious to know what limitations you've experienced that work against GAE for enterprise deployments.
nl
(To be clear, I'm not using AppEngine for enterprise software. But I've done lots of enterprise software in the past, and I'm doing AppEngine now)

The main problems are as follows: 1) Data privacy. Usually this is just people worrying unnecessarily, but sometimes there are legal requirements about where customer data is stored. These may be jurisdictional or geographic requirements.

2) Integration issues. Enterprise software is all about integration. The AppEngine integration story is getting better, but you'll need to understand the SAML based single-sign-on support that is built into Google Accounts and/or implement it yourself, and you'll need to become familiar with Secure Data Connector (http://code.google.com/securedataconnector/) to integrate with private data sources.

mel_llaguno
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure I won't need SAML for my application, but the Secure Data Connector is definitely something that I will be looking into.
mshafrir
Also, mind sharing what type of work you do that you get to use AppEngine on the job?
nl
I'm not allowed to talk about the details actually. But it's consumer focused, using GWT.
js4all
Rails is a framework. The equivalent on AppEngine would be django (Python) or J2EE (Java).

So, no. Don't make you framework decision based on what your platform provider has to offer. Do it the other way. Make a decision on your framework, then choose a provider.

If the question is provider vs. own hosting? There is nothing wrong with using a paas-provider for a startup. Make sure there is no lock-in.

mel_llaguno
Actually, I was considering using GWT over the AppEngine. It provides a lot of supported functionality (such as fast Image serving, OAuth & OpenID, BLOBStore, Memcache) that seem a bit of a pain to integrate with ROR. Those features in conjunction with the free quota limitations (for approximately 5 million page views per month) make it seem like an ideal low investment platform that can scale one demand. I'm just wondering if anyone chose ROR/Django over GAE and what their reasoning might be.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
nl
Well RoR has got good libraries for image manipulation, OAuth (note that AppEngine doesn't have OAuth built in), OpenID and Memcache.

Blobstore really only exists to work around the lack of file access in AppEngine.

The pricing is something of an advantage, but don't choose it on that alone. If you know Java (or Python) already then it's worth using, but it's probably not going to give you enough of an advantage to switch platform.