Is there any alternative approach other than deploying python flask application in Google app engine flex environment?

Question

We have a dialog flow chatbot (deployed via Google Assistant) with fulfillment written in python flask and deployed in Google cloud App Engine flex environment.

Google Actions --> Google Dialogflow --> Webhook fulfillment in Python Flask App (deployed in Google cloud app)

Since we are in the development stage the cost of the service is very high and we couldn't afford it for a long term.

We tried with Google app engine standard environment, it is getting deployed in http url which we cannot use as dialogflow fulfillment.

We also tried to deploy our app in a Virtual Private Server (Hostinger VPS), we faced session management issue with our deployment in VPS. Same code works fine with Google App Engine, but in VPS deployment session variable is not maintained. Our assumption is App engine is generating a custom cookie / session varilable which is not available in VPS.

Is there any alternative option in Google app engine which we can use.

Would appreciate any help in sorting out this issue.

Answer 1

GAE Standard can use HTTPS. See the secure setting in the app.yaml . Reference here .

Besides this, you can run the webhook backend anywhere you want. You can run this on a non-cloud machine as long as it's exposed to the inte.net and can handle HTTPS traffic. There's tons of guides on how to enable SSL on whatever you use.

The webhook must simply adhere to the requirements listed here .

As far as GCP services that can be used (off the top of my head, I might be missing one or two):

• Compute Engine
• GAE (Flex/STD)
• Cloud Run
• k8s
• Cloud Functions