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You can run your applications in App Engine by using the App Engine flexible environment or the App Engine standard environment. You can also choose to simultaneously use both environments for your application and allow your services to take advantage of each environment's individual benefits.
App Engine environmentsApp 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.
When to choose the standard environmentApplication instances run in a sandbox, using the runtime environment of a supported language listed below.
Applications that need to deal with rapid scaling.
The standard environment is optimal for applications with the following characteristics:
Application instances run within Docker containers on Compute Engine virtual machines (VM).
Applications that receive consistent traffic, experience regular traffic fluctuations, or meet the parameters for scaling up and down gradually.
The flexible environment is optimal for applications with the following characteristics:
The following table summarizes the differences between the two environments:
Feature Standard environment Flexible environment Instance startup time Seconds Minutes Maximum request timeout Depends on the runtime and type of scaling. 60 minutes Background threads Yes, with restrictions Yes Background processes No Yes SSH debugging No Yes Scaling Manual, Basic, Automatic Manual, Automatic Scale to zero Yes No, minimum 1 instance Writing to local disk Read and write access to the/tmp directory. Yes, ephemeral (disk initialized on each VM startup) Modifying the runtime No Yes (through Dockerfile) Deployment time Seconds Minutes Automatic in-place security patches Yes Yes (excludes container image runtime) Access to Google Cloud APIs & Services such as Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, Memorystore, Google Tasks and others. Yes Yes WebSockets No Yes Supports installing third-party binaries Yes Yes Location Locations for the standard environment Locations for the flexible environment Pricing Based on instance hours Based on usage of vCPU, memory, and persistent disks
Also see the in-depth comparison of the environments.
Compare App Engine and Cloud RunTo compare features and learn how to migrate to Cloud Run, see Compare App Engine and Cloud Run.
Compare the flexible environment to Compute EngineThe App Engine flexible environment has the following differences to Compute Engine:
The flexible environment VM instances are restarted on a weekly basis. During restarts, Google's management services apply any necessary operating system and security updates.
You always have root access to Compute Engine VM instances. By default, SSH access to the VM instances in the flexible environment is disabled. If you choose, you can enable root access to your app's VM instances.
Code deployments can take longer as container images are built by using the Cloud Build service.
The geographical region of a flexible environment VM instance is determined by the location that you specify for the App Engine application of your Google Cloud project. Google's management services ensures that the VM instances are co-located for optimal performance.
If you have an application in the standard environment, you might want to move some services to the flexible environment. For guidance, see the recommendations for in the comparison of the environments.
To migrate specific services for Python, Java, Go, and PHP, see Migrate services from the standard environment to the flexible environment.
Try it for yourselfIf you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how Ruby standard environment performs in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.
Try Ruby standard environment freeExcept as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC.
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