Top 10 Serverless Solutions

This article will discuss the best ten serverless solutions available on the market, their features, advantages, and pricing models.

Due to the continued increase in demand for mobile app development, the need to have a maintenance-free platform for creating app becomes apparent.  That is why many cloud service providers often offer a serverless solution option for their users. 

A serverless solution enhances the efficiency of app development because the service provider handles server management tasks. This type of service is arguably the best option for app development.  In this article, we shall be discussing the following points.

• An Overview of Serverless
• The Advantages of Serverless.
• Classification of Serverless Solutions
• The Top10 Serverless Solutions for App Development.

At the end of the discourse, we listed the top ten serverless solutions in the world today.

An Overview of Serverless

Serverless solutions are cloud services that allow developers to create and manage apps without the hassles of managing a server.  Developing apps has no direct relation to the server.  

Therefore, developers ought not to bother with server maintenance and scaling assignments when the need arises. Some architecture allows the developer to use containers to deploy apps efficiently. So, they do not have to bother with server issues.

Serverless platforms handle upscaling and downscaling of apps automatically as the demand for resources fluctuates periodically.  This approach enhances cost-effectiveness because the app owner doesn’t’ pay for redundant server resources.

The serverless platform provider provides the infrastructure, manages it, and scales it when required. The app scaling technology often uses containers that launch whenever the app demand reaches a specific threshold. 

This cloud service approach differs from Infrastructure as a Service that offers specific server resources in various packages. Therefore, the user is responsible for scaling the service when the server resources are exhausted. Also, the developer must pay for server resources, irrespective of the usage level during the billing cycle.

A serverless platform works differently because the server is configured to allocate resources automatically when there is a demand for the service.  Once the request is fulfilled, the given resource is withdrawn, so the app owner only pays for the server resources used. With a serverless platform, recurrent server management assignment is unnecessary.

The Advantages of Serverless Solutions

The advantages of serverless platforms are as follows:

• Reduced Project Timeline: Developers can complete projects faster and launch them to the market. They can also get user feedback quicker and fix bugs more quickly.

• Reduces Costs: Since app owners only have to pay for the server resources used, the case of overprovisioning does not occur. Therefore, hosting costs is lower.

• Better Performance: The autoscaling feature of serverless platforms allows for optimal performance during peak periods.

• App Builder Friendly: Functions such as integrators enhance app development procedures on this type of platform. 

Classification of Serverless Solutions

There are two different classes of serverless platforms. They are:

Backend as a Service:  This class of serverless platform, called BaaS and MBaaS for short, offers infrastructure and tools that enable developers to connect apps to the backend service. The tools offered may include SDKs and APIs and Libraries. Backend as a Service is a newer serverless platform model that creates value for developers. 

Function as a Service: This serverless platform, commonly called FaaS, provides all the resources required to build, deploy and manage apps on the cloud.  Like BaaS, the developer doesn’t have to bother about infrastructure management or scaling service. They simply use the FaaS resources to build and deploy apps or microservices as the need arises. 

The Top 10 Serverless Solutions for App Development.

After extensive research, we streamlined the top ten serverless platforms for building apps. The overview of each of these platforms goes below:

Back4app

Back4app has emerged as one of the most reliable mobile backend service providers around. Developers love this platform for its simplicity and scalability.  The serverless platform of Back4app have been used extensively for building IoT, Mobile and Web apps. 

Available Features

• Server-side database that is capable of real tie data synchronization.
• Supports both GraphQL and REST APIs.
• Offers LiveQuery capabilities for real-time communication app development.
• Flexible and scalable hosting options.

The Costs

• Free
• Shared hosting at $5/month
• Dedicated hosting at $250/month

Please read What is new with Back4app to keep updated with this platform.

Firebase

Firebase is a well-known BaaS platform among developers. This serverless platform is famous for it’s JSON-based NoSQL database. It offers an intuitive feature-rich interface that is easy to use. The need to manage servers and create API is reduced significantly, and the customization options are impressive.

Available Features

Databases: Firebase offers two types of  NoSQL, cloud-based databases for its platform users. These are Cloud Firestore and the Realtime Database. Both technologies integrate with the Google Cloud Platform and support live storage, data sync, offline features. Cloud Firestore is the more recent database with enhanced features.

Machine Learning: The platform provides special development kits consisting of Mobile SDKs that allow the developers to create apps with machine learning features.

Cloud Functions: This feature allows developers to create functions triggered by Firebase components and other HTTPS requests. Some of its usages include secure user logic and Firebase Integration.

Costs

• Free Tier
• Pay as you go plan

Please read the article What is Firebase Used For to better understand this platform.

AWS Lambda

Amazon, the global e-Commerce giant, is the owner of the AWS Lambda serverless platform. They provide users with infrastructure and backend resources for running scripts that automated server management tasks. It is an excellent option for developing and running event-driven apps and other small/medium scale applications 

Platform Features

• Gives the flexibility of creating app backends that activate on demand.
• Provides fault tolerance features and multi-region availability.’
• Allows for core retrieval and excellent scaling of the backend on demand.

The Costs

• Free tier
• Resource-based pricing

Kinvey 

Kinkey has a reputation for powering several high-profile apps in the world today. It offers developers server infrastructure, several frontend SDKs, and several app development components that enhanced development assignments. Other features include data storage and integration, among other useful functions.

Platform Features

• A feature-rich serverless backend that creates value for app development tasks.
• Codesharing feature that enhances code management and cross-platform app development.
• Provides limitless native APIs for extensive Angular development.

The Costs

• Free trial
• Pricing starting point is $2,500/year

Backendless 

Just as the name implies, Backendless provides a highly efficient serverless platform for app development based on opensource technologies. App development on this platform is fast and seamless. They offer developers infrastructure, APIs, and other valuable tools.

Platform Features

• Offers support for several types of database.
• Offers catching capabilities that increase user speed.
• Users can manage log files centrally to improve app performance.

The Costs

• Free tier
• Pricing starts at $25/month

Google Cloud Functions 

This is a Google-owned serverless environment designed for developing and integrating online services. Developers use it to build app cloud functions that are triggered by programmable events.  This service negates the need for providing or managing the server infrastructure.

Platform Features

Removes the hassles from infrastructure management so the developer can focus on creating apps.

Offers automated scaling feature so that the app can function optimally when the server demand for resources increases.

Costs

• Free Tier
• Resource-based pricing

Azure Functions

Just like other serverless platforms, infrastructure management is not required with Azure functions.  The developer can have access to backend to create scripts and set them to trigger automatically by events. It is a user-friendly and reliably serverless platform.

Platform Features

• Azure supports several programming languages like Node.js, Python, PHP, and Java.

• Provides an intuiting web-based user interface that makes code writing easy. User can create scripts for responding and managing various types of events.

• The platform handles resource allocation and server deployment for scaling apps automatically. 

Platform Pricing

• Free tier
• Consumption-based pricing

Cloudflare Workers

This serverless platform is purpose-built for creating and executing various modules of cloud functions. Cloudflare worker provides a utility known as “Wrangler” for managing cloud functions. With this utility, developers can access vital development tools such as templates and commands for configuring, building, and publishing cloud functions,

Platform Features

• Increases the availability and speed of accessing apps or websites.
• Allows the retrieving of dynamic content from HTML templates.
• User can acquire combined responses from requests generated from different services.
• Create custom security rules and filters that block visitors and bots.
• Validate and clean data before making an origin request.

Costs

• Free Tier
• Pay as you go

Kuzzle 

Kuzzle offers developers a serverless platform packed with development tools like plugins, administrative consoles, APIs, geofencing functions, and much more. It has been used to building IoT, web, and mobile apps.

Platform Features 

• Developers can take advantage of the real-time Pub/Sub functions to create event-driven apps.
• Offers various functions for creating modern app features.
• Supports deployment offline and horizontal scaling, 

Costs

• Download for free
• Hosting starting at $1,200 per month

Netlify 

With Netlify, developers can access a wide array of tools for automating development and hosting assignments. Getting a static site up and running with Netlify is fast and straightforward; you can build mobile and web apps with the drag and drop functions on the platform. Besides, you can also import GIT repository into your development project easily by selecting any GIT branch.

Platform Features

Branch Deployment Support: This feature enables you to make branch feature deployment quickly for tests and review purposes.

Contextual Build Commands: Developers use contextual build commands to make customized app deployment quickly.

SSL: This serverless platform provides SSL and functions to set up custom domains quickly. Users can choose between dedicated SSL and custom SSL.

Costs

• Free
• Plans start at $19/mo

Serverless Solutions Comparison

Conclusion 

All the serverless platforms described in this article offers features that negates the need for managing servers. They can help make your development tasks faster and less stressful. You can review the platforms and select the one that is best for you.

Looking for Open-Source Serverless solutions? If so, please read the article Open-Source Serverless Platforms.