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# Why App Engine

Google App Engine enables you to build web applications on the same scalable systems that power Google applications. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve to your users.

Find out why App Engine may be right your your business.

- Easy to get Started
- Automatic scalability
- The reliability, performance and security of Google's infrastructure.
- Cost efficient hosting
- Risk free trial period

## Easy to get Started

App Engine is a complete development stack that uses familiar technologies to build and host web applications. With App Engine you write your application code, test it on your local machine and upload it to Google with a simple click of a button or command line script. Once your application is uploaded to Google we host and scale your application for you. You no longer need to worry about system administration, bringing up new instances of your application, sharding your database or buying machines. We take care of all the maintenance so you can focus on features for your users.

## Automatic scalability

For the the first time your applications can take advantage of the same scalable technologies that Google applications are built on, things like BigTable and GFS. Automatic scaling is built in with App Engine, all you have to do write your application code and we'll do the rest. No matter how many users you have or how much data your application stores, App Engine can scale to meet your needs.

## The reliability, performance and security of Google's infrastructure.

Google has a reputation for highly reliable, high performance infrastructure. With App Engine you can take advantage of the 10 years of knowledge Google has in running massively scalable, performance driven systems. The same security, privacy and data protection policies we have for Google's applications applies to all App Engine applications. We take security very seriously and have measures in place to protect your code and application data.

## Cost efficient hosting

App Engine will always be free to get started, and we plan on enabling developers to purchase more computing resources sometime this year. Detailed pricing for usage that has exceeded the free quota of 500 MB of storage and around 5M pageviews per month is available here.

## Risk free trial period

Not only is creating an App Engine application easy, it's free! You can create an account and publish an application that people can use right away at no charge, and with no obligation. An application on a free account can use up to 500MB of storage and up to 5 million page views a month.

During this preview period, only free accounts are available. In the near future, you will be able to purchase additional computing resources at competitive market prices (see above). Free accounts will continue to be available after the preview period.