Notes from the build
Announcements, engineering notes, and migration guides as we build simple managed services in the App Engine tradition.
How to Add Full-Text Search to Your App with a REST API
A hands-on walkthrough: create an index with one write, push structured documents, then run fielded queries with facets, sorting, snippets, and cursor pagination — all over plain HTTP.
Managed WebSocket Pub/Sub Without Running a Server
Self-hosting realtime means owning connection state, a fan-out backplane, and every reconnect. Here is the managed shape instead: HTTP publish, one client WebSocket carrying many channels, channel-scoped tokens, and a bill that goes to zero when nobody is connected.
The Cheapest Managed Full-Text Search for Small Apps
Most hosted search is priced for scale a small catalog doesn't have — either a rented cluster with a monthly floor or per-record fees that climb. Here's how the two models differ, and how to keep managed search at or near zero while you're small.
Migrating App Engine Search to a REST API Without Rewriting Your Queries
Moving off App Engine's Search API touches less than you think. Your query strings, field types, facets and document schemas carry over as-is — what you actually rewrite is the call layer that sends them.
Replacing App Engine's Channel API for Realtime in 2026
App Engine's Channel API is gone. Here are the three real ways to get realtime pub/sub in 2026 — a self-hosted socket server, a large realtime platform, or altengine's Channel revival — with honest trade-offs and accurate request shapes.
The App Engine Search API Is Gone: Your Real Options in 2026
App Engine's Search API is retired. Here are the three honest replacement paths in 2026 — run your own cluster, adopt a big hosted search service, or use altengine's semantics-preserving revival — with the real trade-offs on cost, ops, and migration effort.
What managed search really costs: altengine vs. Algolia, Elastic, and the rest
Most hosted search either rents you a cluster with a monthly floor or bills per record until a catalog gets expensive. Here's how the options actually price out — and where altengine lands.
Announcing altengine: App Engine's Search, Channel, and Datastore, semantics intact
The Search and Channel APIs that App Engine retired are back, and its Datastore comes along as a standalone document store — three simple cloud services with a genuinely free tier. Here's what we built and why.