Google Cloud Run (GCR) and Sliplane both simplify deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications. However, there are some key differences, and both platforms serve different users and use cases. Let's compare them side by side.
In a nutshell:
Google Cloud Run allows deployment and management of containerized applications in a serverless environment. While it is able to handle huge traffic, going serverless is not always a possibility and pricing can be unpredictable. Sliplane, on the other hand, provides fixed resources that are continuously available. It is focused on startups, SMBs, and solo developers looking for a simple and affordable solution to get containers running in the cloud quickly, without the overhead of managing infrastructure.
| Sliplane | GCR | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | ★★★★★ | ★★★☆☆ |
| Reliability | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ |
| Scalability | ★★☆☆☆ | ★★★★★ |
| Pricing | ★★★★★ | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Target Audience | Startups, SMBs, solo developers looking for a simple and cost-effective alternative with a predictable pricing model | Large enterprises with high scalability requirements, running fluctuating workloads and no tight budget restrictions |
Scalability
Scaling on Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run is a serverless compute engine. This means, the cloud provider takes full control of allocating compute resources for your software based on demand. Google Cloud's serverless architecture allows it to quickly scale up automatically as needed and scale down to 0.
Services that have been idle for a while will experience cold starts, meaning their response time becomes significantly higher on the first invocation. There are general development tips to reduce the impact of cold starts on Google Cloud Run though.
CPU and memory utilization can be configured up to 8 vCPUs and 32 GB of memory. The maximum number of instances depends on the region and your account limit, but it is mostly somewhere in the range of 1000. If you want to scale globally, you can deploy to a network of data centers all around the world.
Scaling on Sliplane
Sliplane services do not run in a serverless environment. You get access to servers that stay up and running until they get deleted again, therefore, startup times are not an issue and in general fluctuating response times are less likely to happen. On the flip side, general scalability is more limited and you might have to overprovision servers if you are dealing with inconsistent traffic.
You have the possibility to scale your servers vertically if needed. Servers go up to 16 vCPUs and 32 GB of RAM. Horizontal scaling is also possible but not natively supported. You would have to spin up new servers manually and handle load balancing with a custom load balancing service. If you want to scale globally, you can deploy your services to six different locations: two in Germany, two in the US, one in Finland, and one in Singapore.
Reliability
GCR Reliability
GCR provides an SLA. With the exception of deployments to Mexico, Cloud Run starts refunding you 10% if monthly uptime is below 99.95% (~20 minutes of downtime) and up to 50% if it goes below 95.0% (~1.5 days of downtime). Additionally, GCR provides advanced tooling for creating high-availability setups with redundancy across all components of the system.
Sliplane Reliability
Sliplane does not provide SLAs. It is built mostly on top of Hetzner infrastructure. In the past three months (Nov 24 - Jan 24), uptime was over 99.95%, and going back further, it was consistently over 99.99%. It's safe to say that the general reliability of the service is rock-solid, although Sliplane does not offer tooling for high-availability setups >99.99% uptime. When it comes to backup and recovery options, Sliplane provides automatic daily volume backups for every server, which can be restored within the platform.
Ease of Use
To better understand the difference, let’s look at the deploy flow of both platforms.
How to deploy an application with GCR?
I can't explain it better than the GCR getting started documentation itself, so if you need a detailed guide, I suggest you look there. There are multiple ways to deploy applications with GCR, but to give you a rough example, the steps may look something like this:
- Set up your Google Cloud account and enable billing
- Create a new project
- Navigate to Cloud Run and click on deploy service
- Choose from deploying from a repository, registry or an inline editor and configure Cloud Build to setup CD if needed
- Add addional service configuration for persistent storage, networking, scaling and security
- You can deploy by pushing new commits to your repo
How to deploy an application with Sliplane?
You can find a detailed guide to deploy a service with Sliplane in the docs. The steps involve:
- Sign up with your GitHub account.
- Create a project.
- Create a server to deploy to.
- Choose either a repository or registry as a deploy source and deploy your service with all the config it needs (environment variables, volumes, etc.).
- You can deploy new versions of the service by pushing new commits to your repo or via webhook.
Pricing
Pricing of Google Cloud Run
The pricing structure of Cloud Run is quite complex. For better comparison, let's try to keep our examples close to what Sliplane offers.
Google Cloud Run provides two billing models: instance-based billing and request-based billing. Instance-based billing is generally cheaper but you pay for the entire container instance lifecycle, request-based billing is more expensive, but you only pay for actual processing time. Additionally, you pay for resources like build minutes, storage, and bandwidth that you might use on top.
Prices also depend on the region, we will look at a Tier 1: useast1 (South Carolina).
Compute:
In useast1, Cloud Run charges $0.00001800 per vCPU second and GB of memory for instance-based billing. You get 240,000 seconds for free each month. In a configuration comparable to Sliplane, that amounts to:
| vCPUs | Memory | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 GiB | $111.22 |
| 3 | 4 GiB | $171.18 |
| 4 | 8 GiB | $239.86 |
| 8 | 16 GiB | $479.71 |
| 8 | 32 GiB | $559.42 |
GCR prices in useast1 (South Caroline) per month based on 30.42 days of runtime including free tier, prices from 03/02/2024
Storage and Network:
In useast1 (South Carolina), Google's Cloud storage pricing starts at $0.02 per GB and gets cheaper at higher volume.
Bandwidth charges are split into two tiers: standard and premium. The premium tier is more expensive, but offers lower latency, better uptime, and comes with some free usage. We will look at the standard tier. Incoming traffic is free, outgoing traffic depends on where it's routed to. In the US, traffic to servers outside the Google network is charged $0.085 per GB ($85 per TB) and prices decrease with higher usage.
Let's include storage and network resources in our calculation, as these are also provided on Sliplane:
| vCPUs | Memory | Storage | Egress | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 GiB | 40 GB | 2 TB | $282.02 |
| 3 | 4 GiB | 80 GB | 2 TB | $342.78 |
| 4 | 8 GiB | 160 GB | 2 TB | $413.06 |
| 8 | 16 GiB | 240 GB | 2 TB | $654.52 |
| 8 | 32 GiB | 360 GB | 2 TB | $726.62 |
GCR prices in useast1 (South Carolina) including storage and networking fees, comparable to what Sliplane offers, monthly prices have been calculated based on 30.42 days of runtime, prices from 03/02/2024
Additional fees:
It doesn't stop there. You'll also be charged for other GCP resources that you might need on top of your configuration, such as storage for your container images in the registry, log storage, build minutes and more. The exact costs depend on your project, and as I mentioned before, it's complicated.
Pricing of Sliplane
Compared to GCR, Sliplane's pricing is simpler. You pay per server, which includes storage and traffic up to a certain limit. Beyond that, there are additional costs for extra bandwidth.
In US East, server prices are as follows:
| Instance | vCPUs | Memory | Disk | Egress | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 2 | 2 GB | 40 GB | 2 TB | $10.84 |
| Medium | 3 | 4 GB | 80 GB | 2 TB | $31.71 |
| Large | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB | 2 TB | $56.05 |
| XLarge | 8 | 16 GB | 240 GB | 2 TB | $96.57 |
| XXLarge | 16 | 32 GB | 360 GB | 2 TB | $259.18 |
Sliplane US server prices, including networking and storage at an exchange rate of $1.05 EUR-Dollar, 03/02/2025
Additional bandwidth costs $0.0021 per GB ($2.10 per TB).
Summary
In summary, GCR and Sliplane are suited for different users and needs.
GCR:
Google Cloud Run's serverless architecture provides excellent scalability capable of dealing with almost any workload. However, the decision to go serverless needs to be carefully considered.
It isn't ideal for long-running processes, stateful applications, or high-performance computing. Additionally, services will be subject to cold starts if they are idle for a while, and going serverless usually is significantly more expensive for predictable and consistent workloads. Unlimited scalability is great, but keep in mind that your bills scale even faster. It's very easy to lose track of what's going on, and there are numerous stories of people who suddenly face sky-high GCR bills overnight.
Target Audience:
- Enterprises with high scalability requirements and no tight restrictions on budget.
- Companies with spiky or highly fluctuating workloads.
- Teams with Google Cloud Platform integration needs (BigQuery, Vertex AI, etc.).
Sliplane:
Sliplane is not competing with GCR on scalability. Its focus lies on startups, SMBs, and solo developers who are looking for a simple and affordable solution to deploy containerized workloads. The traditional approach of having a server also allows for more flexibility regarding the app architecture.
Sliplane comes with predictable pricing at highly competitive rates.
Target Audience:
- Startups, SMBs, or solo developers.
- Non-DevOps teams that want reliable but easy-to-use infrastructure.
- Companies looking for cost-effective alternatives and a predictable pricing model.
Top comments (2)
more like google cloud walk HEHE
Hehe, you better run from Google Cloud 😜 🏃🏼♂️