Engine Yard In 2018: How Would Engine Yard Clients Review Them?

Engine Yard Introduction

Engine Yard is completely different from typical hosting providers because it’s a type of cloud computing known as Platform as a Service (PaaS). The difference between PaaS and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the amount of work the service provider handles for you. PaaS allows developers to run and scale applications in a cloud environment, without the need to manage operating system (OS) installation, configuration, or updates. Engine Yard PaaS manages everything for you while you retain complete control.

Founded in 2006, Engine Yard now serves customers in more than 58 countries.

Support

Help is supplied at a basic level to all accounts holders. You may access a knowledge base and support via ticketing, telephone, or Internet Relay Chat (IRC). You get help with system configuration, upgrades, app configuration, and deployment. Premium support, including system administration tasks performed on your behalf, proactive response to system alerts, round-the-clock emergency support, and 99.9% uptime service level agreement, can be purchased for an additional fee.

Features

Engine Yard doesn’t offer service packages with a rigid feature set, because you pay for what you use. However, pricing is calculated “per instance.” Instances are available in nine configurations.

• Instances run on Amazon EC2; some additional fees may apply, included in Engine Yard billing
• Pay-as-you-go
• No signup fee
• Ongoing costs are computed daily and display in your account; no guessing what you owe
• 500-hour free trial; Ruby on Rails hosting
• Cancel at any time
• Fully scalable
• Up to 26 ECUs (Amazon’s EC2 Compute Unit; similar to one CPU core), depending on instance running
• Up to 64.8 GB memory, depending on instance(s) running
• Up to 1690 GB non-persistent storage, depending on instance(s) running
• Choose your own custom configuration; any number or type of instances
• Customize bandwidth, support type, and backup amount and frequency

Free Trial

While some hosts offer a limited period of time to try their services, Engine Yard offers trial computing hours.

• No credit card required, just your name and email
• Use your 500 hours in one or many instances of your choice
• Start and stop instances
• Use free hours over as long as six months
• Your data remains available for 90 days after trial period

Use Cases

It’s helpful to understand the possibilities of a PaaS setup, including whether it could be useful for your business.

• Software as a Service (SaaS); social photo tagging, multimedia processing
• Mobile apps
• Corporate websites; partner and customer portals
• Media-rich website hosting
• E-commerce; promotions, online shopping storefronts
• Campaigns, including seasonal marketing and product launches
• Games running in the users’ browsers

Pros

• Free trial hours
• Live support options standard
• No signup fee

Cons

• Premium support costs extra
• Additional Amazon fees may apply
• Engine Yard collects 20% markup on Amazon fees

The Verdict

Engine Yard PaaS is not a typical Web hosting provider, so it’s not really comparable to (for example) virtual private server (VPS) hosting for a WordPress site. It’s perfect for developers who can’t or don’t want to spend time on setup or server configuration, however, because it’s immediately scalable. You pay as you go, so there is no chance you’ll pay for features you don’t use. Those who who fall into Engine Yard’s very specific target market will likely appreciate this company’s flexible, configurable, and comprehensive service plans, as well as its robust live support options.