Google Inc. announced a handy new feature for its Cloud Platform Thursday that will make life a lot easier for first timers or those looking to save time: the Cloud Launcher.

The launcher offers easy installation of over 120 open source packages that have been configured by Bitnami, for Google, for deployment. To use, users simply select a package from the library, specify any parameters required for the install, and bingo: the package is then up and running.

According to the Google Cloud Platform blog, Cloud Launcher includes developer tools and stacks such as Apache Solr, Django, Gitlab, Jenkins, LAMP, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Tomcat. Also included are popular databases like MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, as well as applications including WordPress, Drupal, JasperReports, Joomla and SugarCRM.

Google claims that many of the packages have been specifically built and performance-tuned for Google Cloud Platform, although they are still working to make sure that all packages are integrated with Google Cloud Monitoring for performance metrics and service monitoring.

“Deploying an application requires that all underlying runtime components and packages be in place and configured correctly” Google Cloud Platform Product Manager Varun Talwar says. “This often becomes a labor-intensive, time-consuming task. Developers should spend most of their time on design and writing code. Time spent finding and deploying libraries, fixing dependencies, resolving versioning issues and configuring tooling is time away from that work. ”

Appealing Amazon alternative

Install packages from Bitnami have been available for Amazon Web Services for a considerable number of years, but not in an as easy one-click solution as Google is presenting with Cloud Launcher.

Developers have their differences of opinion over AWS vs Google Cloud, and while the latter has become particularly popular for app development, the former remains the more popular service for hosting. The announcement adds another layer to Google’s Cloud offering in its (perhaps never ending) battle with Amazon in the cloud market.

To check it out, you can visit Cloud Launcher here. If you don’t currently have a Google Cloud account, they offer a free trial that gives you $300 in credit.