Top 5 PaaS Cloud Services

For the last few years, businesses are tending to adopt cloud computing models and Platform as a Service (PaaS) is also one of them.

Gartner predicts the revenues of PaaS would reach around 27.7 billion USD by 2021. This revenue was only 11.9 billion USD in 2017.

That’s why we initiated to share one of the best PaaS cloud services with benefits and features in this article.

What is PaaS?

A cloud computing form that enables developers to build, operate and administer applications without investing in hardware and software infrastructure refers to the PaaS.

Indeed, you rent everything including operating systems, infrastructure and further tools from the service provider at reasonable rates.

In this regard, PaaS cloud services use centralized data centres to host databases, servers, networks and OS software to assist clients. The utilization of these resources could be adjusted by developers with great ease.

What are the Advantages of a PaaS Cloud?

PaaS cloud offers numerous advantages to businesses and developers. Withal, we are sharing the major benefits of using PaaS cloud services here:

Requires Minimal Development

With pre-coded application properties, developers don’t need to spend much effort to design code for each tool.

PaaS offers a variety of pre-built and pre-coded features like security tools, search, directory services and workflow. Coders can use these pre-coded resources to amend their applications.

Similarly, the PaaS cloud also assists businesses in many application tasks with pre-built functions. That’s why it is not required to hire more staff to add new skills to your team.

Reliable Option for Remote Teams

If you are working remotely as a team of developers then the use of the PaaS cloud could be an outstanding option for you.

By permitting project access over the internet, it is easy to work for teams from different locations with PaaS cloud services. You can also grant the application access to them according to their team roles.

Scalability

Scalability is the most prominent advantage of the PaaS cloud. Indeed, it is convenient to increase and decrease your resources according to the size of your project with the PaaS cloud.

Automated provision of resources aids the scaling mechanism of PaaS cloud services. It enhances the resources when your business grows or downsizes the resource whenever you want to limit your operations. However, it is hard to make your own platform scalable compared to the PaaS cloud.

Cross-Platform Development

Developers don’t need to design applications for different platforms. Surely, PaaS cloud services allow users to build and deploy their applications for multiple platforms at once.

Cost-Efficient Development

By using PaaS services, it becomes easy to build and launch an application because of reasonable rates. Indeed, you can only pick the desirable resources by using PaaS cloud services.

Mainly, these services also offer pay-as-you-go features where you just need to pay for what you use. With the help of billing management features of PaaS providers, you can control your expenditures as well.

Top 5 PaaS Cloud Services

You should also consider using the following PaaS cloud services that are getting popular among users.

Back4app

Back4app is an open source, cloud-based mobile application development platform. It allows developers to create, deploy and manage their applications with ease.

Back4App provides a wide range of tools for app building including drag-and-drop UI elements, RESTful APIs, analytics and push notifications to name a few.

Features

• Container platform
• GitHub integration
• Analytics
• Free to start
• Predictable pricing

Heroku

Heroku is a useful PaaS provider that was launched in 2007. In the beginning, it was only designed to back Ruby but luckily, now it is also eligible for various languages including PHP, Java, Python and Node.js etc.

Heroku entered the cloud industry intending to improve development productivity and developer experience. With its good services, this PaaS cloud service deals with 26 billion requests per day.

Features

Affordable plans— Compared to the expensive PaaS providers, Heroku is the best fit for newbies and startups. Yes, it allows developers to start for $3/month building and deployment with Heroku.

Heroku Developer Experience (DX) — This app-oriented application path permits coders to focus on creating quality applications without the worry of infrastructure. It also provides tools like Continuous Integration (CI) to aid quick integration of applications.

Heroku Operational Experience (OpEx) — This tool supports examining the issues that are bad for your application’s health. It doesn’t only identify these issues but also makes you alert about these threats.

Heroku Redis — To improve developer experience, Heroku Redis aids in bringing your keys, high availability and expertise to run large data stores.

Heroku Postgres — Heroku Postgres tools like data clips, forks and Trusted data integration assist in delivering secure open-source databases.

Engine Yard

Engine Yard is another Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider that also offers a free start. With more than 12,000 plus applications and 99.99% guaranteed uptime, it is considered a reliable US-based PaaS cloud service.

A 24/7 full-stack customer support also makes it an appealing choice for startups, SMEs and large businesses.

Features

Backs Multiple Languages — If you are avoiding using Engine Yard and thinking it is only good for Ruby then you are wrong. Engine Yard is also a good PaaS provider for applications like Node.js, PHP and Python etc.

Scalability — Another exciting feature for preferring Engine Yard over the other PaaS services is its scalability property. By using custom app metrics, you can easily scale your resources. However, you would have to determine the policy to scale down or up the resources.

Automated Monitoring — To improve developer experience, Engine Yard also provides automated monitoring. In this regard, it shares the insights with the developers. These alerts aid coders to know about application failures.

24/7 Support — With these reliable features, it also offers 24/7 support. It doesn’t only share your query with the representative. But this platform also owns AWS certified support managers that would guide you in technical matters.

Red Hat OpenShift

Red Hat OpenShift is a container platform that was initially launched in 2011. Although it offers many services but you can use it both as a PaaS and CaaS solution.

With more than 2000 plus satisfied customers, it is considered a growing cloud platform.

Features

Free Trial — Like the PaaS cloud services that we mentioned above, Red Hat OpenShift also allows its users a free trial opportunity. In this way, developers could be aware of its features, pros and cons.

Multicloud Environments — Red Hat OpenShift doesn’t only support hybrid cloud environments but also permits successfully run applications in a multi-cloud environment. Because of this property of Red Hat OpenShift developers don’t need to learn new skills.

Developer-Friendly Environment — Red Hat OpenShift gives great value to developer’s experience. That’s why they always emphasize providing a productive and logical development environment to developers.

Data Foundation — It provides highly accessible data storage for applications. It supports both shared and dynamic data collection options.

API Management — OpenShift API management feature allows users to approach entirely managed environments to build, deploy and run applications. It takes only a few seconds to provide such fully managed environments.

DigitalOcean App Platform

DigitalOcean App Platform is another PaaS cloud service that offers free use of its PaaS services for 3 static sites.

However, its basic plan starts from $5/month but it is only eligible to prototype applications. To fully install your applications, the plan starts from $12/month.

Features

Fully Managed Solution — This is a fully managed solution where it is effortless to create, install, scale and operate applications.

Secure Apps — The use of SSL certificates makes your applications secure with the DigitalOcean App Platform. Its automated security also safeguards your application against DDoS attacks.

Productivity — Most developers also prefer to pick this PaaS cloud service because of its supportive features to boost productivity. It backs a variety of frameworks and languages including Hugo, Node.js, React, PHP, Ruby, Laravel and Ruby on Rails etc. DigitalOcean App Platform is also a good option if you want to install scripts directly from GitHub or GitLab.

Scalability — Either you want to add more resources into your project or want to scale down the resources, it is easy to do with this PaaS provider. Fortunately, during this procedure, your application would remain up.

Dokku

Dokku is another simple and smart PaaS cloud service. This free and open-source PaaS provider could be a reliable option for developers and businesses.

Features

Open Source — This docker-centric cloud platform is being used among startups because of its open-source features. Withal, to perform its PaaS operations it gets help from Heroku and DigitalOcean.

Easy Deployment — It is effortless to deploy an application with Dokku. Especially if you are going to install Heroku-backed applications.

Supports Multiple Languages — Surely, the Dokku plugin script could be coded in distinct programming languages.

Cost-Efficient — As compared to other PaaS providers, you would find Dokku a very cost-efficient cloud solution. Moreover, with its fast development features, it would also allow developers to market their applications within less time.

Conclusion

The use of PaaS cloud services is gearing up among both SMEs and large enterprises. Withal, if you also want to start using the PaaS cloud to build and deploy your application then our list could be helpful.

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