Comparison between SAE and open source services - Serverless App Engine

Serverless App Engine (SAE) is an application-oriented serverless PaaS platform that provides a cost-effective and efficient one-stop application hosting solution. You can use serverless architectures, Kubernetes, and microservices even if you are new to containers. This topic describes the differences between SAE and open source services in multiple scenarios by comparing the following items: system setup, costs, feature management, scaling efficiency, and monitoring and diagnostics.

Basic scenarios

Item	Self-managed cluster with open source Spring Cloud or Apache Dubbo and self-managed IaaS	Self-managed cluster with open source Spring Cloud or Apache Dubbo and native Kubernetes	SAE
IaaS procurement and system setup	Required.	Required.	Not required. SAE provides a built-in microservices framework and Kubernetes clusters.
O&M cost	Required.	Required.	Not required. SAE is O&M-free.
Hardware cost	The annual subscription of IaaS based on the peak traffic volume is relatively costly due to low resource utilization.	The annual subscription of IaaS based on the peak traffic volume is relatively costly due to low resource utilization.	Scalable resources and the pay-as-you-go billing method reduce costs by minimizing idle resources.
Application management	CLI-based operations are inefficient and prone to errors. Self-integrated cloud services and self-developed release policies are used to prevent service downtime caused by upgrades.	Operations on kubectl or Kubernetes Dashboard require a specific level of experience. Self-integrated cloud services and self-developed release policies are used to prevent service downtime caused by upgrades.	UI-based operations enable automatic traffic distribution based on the application status. SAE supports canary release, and releases can be observed and rolled back. SAE can be used together with Jenkins and Apsara Devops to implement continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). SAE supports image repositories and code sources.
Permission management	Self-developed solutions.	Permissions are granted by using the role-based access control (RBAC) mechanism of Kubernetes. However, this does not meet the requirements of enterprises for permission isolation among multiple tenants.	SAE is fully compatible with Alibaba Cloud Resource Access Management (RAM) and can isolate permissions at the namespace and application levels.
Scaling efficiency	Within minutes.	Within minutes.	Within seconds.
User experience	Before users can create applications, users are required to perform multiple operations. For example, users must purchase infrastructure, create clusters, and initialize clusters. Interconnection to cloud services requires manual operations, which results in inferior integration experience.	Before users can create applications, users are required to perform multiple operations. For example, users must purchase infrastructure, create clusters, and initialize clusters. Interconnection to cloud services requires manual operations, which results in inferior integration experience.	Applications can be easily created. Seamless interconnection with various cloud services provides one-stop PaaS experience.

Microservices scenarios

Item	Self-managed cluster with open source Spring Cloud or Apache Dubbo and self-managed IaaS	Self-managed cluster with open source Spring Cloud or Apache Dubbo and native Kubernetes	SAE
Microservices management	Integrated microservices are customized based on top of open source frameworks and self-managed clusters.	Integrated microservices are customized based on top of open source frameworks and self-managed clusters.	SAE supports the seamless migration of microservices. SAE provides a full set of stable microservices capabilities.
Monitoring and diagnostics	Users need to manually integrate diagnostic tools and maintenance servers based on open source services and build alerting channels.	Users need to manually integrate diagnostic tools and maintenance servers based on open source services and build alerting channels.	SAE monitors systems, applications, and traces. SAE provides application diagnostics capabilities. SAE supports custom alert rules.
Application HA	The development of a high availability (HA) architecture requires a team of experts.	The development of an HA architecture requires a team of experts.	SAE supports multi-zone deployment. SAE provides HA solutions for large-scale events that require precise capacity management, high elasticity, and service throttling and degradation.