Serverless Functions
While working on something, I realised how do developers host functions developed for hobby/demo/side projects?
Would really appreciate some insights on the following:
🧐 How do you run serverless functions today?
😤 What is the hardest thing about running the serverless function in AWS/Azure/GCP?
🧗♂️Why do you find it hard?
⏲️ How often do you run serverless functions?
I really like serverless functions for side projects as they are cheap and generally easy ti get something up and running without having to code a full ORM. I run on AWS with an API gateway. Hardest thing for me is testing locally. Would be nice to not have to redeploy code and debug through AWS. Right now they run every few days or so as I have time to work on the project.
Testing locally, means without internet? For example: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/serverless-application-model/latest/developerguide/serverless-sam-cli-using-invoke.html
Not necessarily without internet, but just locally on my machine without having to redeploy the code. The article is definitely something I should try. The only other things is if the function is interacting with a DynamoDB can that be tested locally as well? Previously I have built backends with Python Django and it creates a local sqlite DB so everything can be tested on local machine. I see tons of benefits with Serverless, but if I could also test locally like a Django app that would be amazing.
That challenge won't go away.
But my premise was if devs hesitate to test/deploy serverless or simply hate the complexity of these rather large platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) to deploy a simple function in seconds?
Thanks for creating this informative post here. You can simply utilize serverless functions to perform different tasks while building web applications, RESTful APIs, IoT, task automation and trigger-oriented projects. However, it is good to adopt serverless functions for operations that could be done in a serverless environment.
PaaS and FaaS are leading examples of serverless functions and you should read this article https://blog.back4app.com/what-are-serverless-functions-in-cloud-computing/ to get details on this topic. Withal, if you ask about the best serverless functions cloud computing platform then Netlify Functions, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions and Vercel Functions are good names.
I think it's great for small projects since you don't generate lots of usage while you don't have to worry about maintenance and setup - many providers have quite generous free plan and provide a unified dev experience (for running things on local machine).
I played with vercel and netlify and both give you a really nice and easy toolset. Obviously, once you start getting more traffic it might be wise to rethink your architecture to have costs under control.
The latest development in that area are serverless edge functions (often combined with web-assembly) which run in POP locations - using those you can have unified low-latency experience across the whole planet :)
This is a really good insight. My target audience was small teams/projects.
Any provider you choose, it takes a lot of steps to get to your first deployment. And I want to remove that barrier.
Working on the landing page: https://remotefunction.webflow.io/
The Serverless Functions are pretty decent for my economy. The https://terraria3.com challenge is for you.