This isn't really true. You just need to configure a redirect from the naked domain to your serving URL, at www.

For example, my site (justbeamit.com), runs on GAE, but the naked domain simply redirects to the www.

I thought about adding an edit in there to clarify you could do that, but I think the points remain that in the end, you still end up with www. in the URL bar.

The real reason is because you cannot add a CNAME record using the zone apex.

AWS gets away with this afaik with some magic to point to the IP address for the loadbalancer that would serve your content.

Techincally you can find the IP address for your GAE subdomain and add an A record for your apex domain, but keep in mind that this is a bad idea.

Also: http://pancake.io is pretty slick

Also: http://paperplane.io

Also: http://cloudcannon.com/

Google App Engine is a good free tier alternative. You have to use their SDK or use the Django-nonrel library, but I've overall been happy.

Django-nonrel is in somewhat rough shape and your code ends up coupled to the platform anyway. No plausible path off of App Engine except a rewrite. So better keep it small.

I believe AppScale is a plausible way out. I tried to use Typhoonae, but couldn't make it work.

I've been playing with the idea of building a App Engine gear able to run Python apps on top of OpenShift, but my day job is interfering with my hobbies...