Should I use app engine to run a single function script?

[Chris Evans]

Hi all,

I'm trying to figure out what is the best service to use when running a single function script. I'm aware of google cloud functions, but that seems to have more of a define request/response structure. What I'm trying to achieve is essentially the same as Github Pages - when you can store a single function in `index.js` of your `docs` directory, and it will run that function on call.

Is App Engine a good place to do that? Or should I stick to hosting full on websites in App Engine?

[Jose Lorea Sanchez]

Solution Provided:

Adding more details to your question on what your function or script is going to do would make it easier for the community to help you answer it, and you might need to take a deeper look at the next suggestions to get a more defined idea. It depends on the context to recommend, or not, certain technologies; I will review a few. You can see how these scale.

As you previously mentioned Google Cloud Functions are great for small functions that are triggered by any kind of event, but you can also call it directly or schedule it. 

If your script is a containerized application, you can consider using Google Cloud Run or Google App Engine. Starting with Cloud Run:

• Cloud Run is a managed compute platform that enables you to run containers that are invocable via requests or events. Cloud Run is serverless: it abstracts away all infrastructure management, so you can focus on what matters most — building great applications.

App Engine has this definition at the Choose an App Engine environment, please read each section (flexible and standard) to get the whole insight:

• App Engine is well suited to applications that are designed using a microservice architecture, especially if you decide to utilize both environments. Use the following sections to learn and understand which environment best meets your application's needs.

Finishing with Google products, I would like to talk about Google Workflows, as it can help you combine multiple technologies in a fully customized way:

• You can use Workflows to execute services in an order you define. Combine the power of Google Cloud services, custom services hosted on Cloud Functions or Cloud Run, and any HTTP-based API to create flexible serverless applications. Workflows requires no infrastructure management and scales seamlessly with demand, including scaling down to zero.

Github Pages is focused on deploying a full web site from a repository as their documentation describes... 

• GitHub Pages is a static site hosting service that takes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files straight from a repository on GitHub, optionally runs the files through a build process, and publishes a website.

…however, you should take a look at their limits:

• GitHub Pages is not intended for or allowed to be used as a free web-hosting service to run your online business, e-commerce site, or any other website that is primarily directed at either facilitating commercial transactions or providing commercial software as a service (SaaS). 

Please consider not only the functionality of each but the tooling and pricing. Google offers free trials and credits, so you might not need to start considering paying until your app grows larger.