From what I see many developers use functions/lambda for more or less same things. I have the idea of creating a marketplace where creators can monetize their lambdas by charging developers/users per lambda\usage.
This is somehow fits very well into the no-code movement, allowing people to easily integrate more ready-made services for various use cases
I actually had a similar thought awhile back, but then did some research and discovered that AWS has already built a marketplace for serverless functions called the Serverless Application Repository (https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/serverlessrepo/).
Given the tight integration with AWS, I couldn't find a compelling reason someone would use an alternate version unless it had some kind of multi-cloud aspect or other features.
Seems like aws is not giving this product too much of a focus on marketing, also dedicated service for that with tons of handmade functions could be an advantage.
It's definitely possible to create alternatives to the AWS services (think Splunk or Datadog vs CloudWatch, etc). AWS just has a habit of getting involved in a ton of things at a broad level, waiting for competition to come into the market, and then seeing if they pick up before investing more resources. It's happened to so many startups that the running joke around Re:invent is "which startups will AWS kill this year?".
This is all true.
But in my mind if we will be endlessly afraid of big corporations killing us as startups we rather not start any startups at all.
Also, logically, the cloud sphere is becoming so competitive with amazon and google fully chipping in, this could be potentially sold to one of these big players
Absolutely - I didn't mean to discourage you, only wanted to warn you about a trend with AWS specifically. That being said there are 1000s of successful companies that build auxiliary services for cloud. If you do build something like this, let me know, I'd be happy to chat more.
Hey, UX/UI designer and front end dev here, this sounds like a great idea, we've had similar issues in the past, purchasing this would help a great deal. Let me know if you would like to collaborate on it
Did you finally find someone or built something related to this? I did lunch a similar idea. Check it out https://awslambdas.com and don't hesitate to contact me.
Thanks for this!
What would be the feature/problem that you would like to be solved the most? What is the pain you had recently?
Interesting idea! A few questions that might help you shape your idea:
Good luck with your project!
PS: I was one of the original devs on the project that became Azure Functions :-)
Hey! Thanks for the feedback.
In my mind I see the functions run on my account, but I let the customer to choose the cloud provider and region.
I do all maintenance, monitoring, logs and other devops.
I think it depends on the code author rather he allows changes in the code or it could be modified. That could be a cool feature.
I would love to keep this discussions with you as it seems you have some inside insight.
I'm at [email protected]
These are some great questions, thanks for sharing your insights
I believe lambda market place is next big thing in the API market place. If it is properly executed its multi-million dollar market.
A lambda market place like templatemonster, Apple AppStore for lambda functions. I haven't seen any serious contender in this domain so far (aws serverlessrepo is junk). I am 100% sure within few years there are going to be huge rush in that market.
If you notice majority of the functionality is being repeated by developers again and again, the same image manipulation, data validation, etc and that is not even tested properly. If there is a market where a tested and quality function is available it is not just going to save my time but it is going to provide bug free, time tested, quality code.
What I also prefer to have is to easily buy and install a set of lambda functions from a repository and host them on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, DO for my own project.
RapidAPI.com almost came close to this, but the restricted themselves to API calling and gatekeeper role. I thought about this few times and I think RapidAPI.com is dumb not to see this market potential.
Goodluck
As a developer I think RapidApi has a terrible product, but they are definitely something to look at in terms of understanding this market.
Another one is bit.dev
This is a good idea. Lambda Functions are very effective for many use cases. AWS invented the cloud but doesn't have taste. Its lambda marketplace is a poor execution, like a few others services in their offering.
I've been selling Lambdas and Layers for a while already in the machine learning niche, which has it particularities.
Check out what I'm doing, any feedback or collaboration is welcome.
https://awslambdas.com
Interesting idea. In JavaScript, Lambdas have long been called callback functions, and are basically stored in NPM or GIT. They are generally FREE. And the commonalities between each are DESIGN PATTERNS. Making general use Lambdas would be tricky, because of customization. But thankfully there is a pattern that helps. FACTORY PATTERN. The FACTORIES.... might be something that could be monetized. Maybe you can also look up MICROSERVICES.
OK so color me stupid:) I know what a callback function is but I have no clue what a Lambda is or even the intent for it. Is it like a C-Library or maybe a procedure oriented module which in effect would perform like an object oriented class?
I am assuming the idea is to sell building blocks rather than whole apps?
It’s an AWS service where you can run functions in the cloud without managing servers.
I think this is actually a pretty cool idea. To make it not as complicated it could just be code samples you can copy / paste from to see if people start coming to the site alot
How would you drive traffic there then?
Also a decent amount of devs hangout on twitter
I would use maybe google keywords to run ads and maybe ads on stackoverflow
Must be more clever way than buying ads :)
It's viable but seems to be a bit complicated on the engineering and UI/UX side. I would love to see something like divjoy but with cloud functions support. I am running OpenFaas myself :)
For that you have netlify function, no?
Why would you think it is complicated? I think the challange here is getting enough developers to deploy they functions first and marketing to consumers like any marketplace chicken and egg problem.
Also endless intergratios to no code platforms would be time consuming
The time consuming aspect would be a moat for competition. Do not let that deter you!