AWS Lambda Alternatives

Serverless is a lucrative new technology to help developers save money and time while releasing new app features more often. However, when it comes to choosing the best serverless, you can have many platforms in this regard.

AWS Lambda is also one of the most fantastic service providers to consider in this regard. However, the platform comes up with some limitations as well. So, here in this article, we are not only going to see what makes AWS Lambda excellent but its limitations and top alternatives as well.

So, let’s go to look at the details below to understand things better in this regard.

Key Takeaways

• Lambda is a serverless compute service to run code without managing servers

• It is scalable, affordable, and fully managed by AWS

• The best alternatives to AWS Lambda are Heroku, Azure Functions, and Google Cloud Functions

What is AWS Lambda?

Amazon Web Services Lambda, aka AWS Lambda, is a fantastic event-driven cloud computing service offered by Amazon Web Services. It can help developers program their functions based on pay-per-user service without even providing compute services and storage to support.

The service is also referred to as FaaS or Function as a Service.

However, AWS Lambda will run your code on a compute infrastructure of high availability and also offers all the compute resources’ administration, including:

• Capacity provisioning
• Code monitoring
• Logging
• Automatic scaling
• Operating system and server maintenance

With AWS Lambda, you can run your code for any backend service or application virtually. To do this, you have to supply your application code in the languages supported by AWS Lambda.

This way, you can organize your code as Lambda functions, while lambda will run the functions and scale them whenever needed, automatically.

Lambda functions can be invoked via Lambda API. AWS Lambda will run your app functions in response to the other AWS services’ responses.  

AWS Lambda Advantages

Here are the key advantages of AWS lambda you must know:

• The principal benefit of AWS lambda is its pricing plan. As the platform is based on pay as you go method, you can quickly minimize its cost.

• AWS Lambda offers automatic support and scalability to your app functions. So, these can run smoothly with ease.

• Most importantly, AWS Lambda can serve a diverse range of use cases efficiently.

• With AWS Lambda, you will be able to ensure quicker iterative development.

Top 10 Alternatives to AWS Lambda

Well, here we have enlisted the top 10 AWS lambda alternatives that you must know to make a better choice with ease.

So, here we go:

1.    Google Cloud Functions

Google Cloud Functions is an excellent serverless execution environment to develop and connect serverless solutions. Google itself supports it. With this platform, you can create simple but single-purpose functions attached to the events emitted from cloud services and infrastructure. Whenever an event is fired, your written function will trigger.

In short, Google Cloud Functions is here to remove your workload regarding software configuration, server management, patching OS, and updating frameworks. It is because, with this platform, overall software and infrastructure will be managed by Google.

2.    Heroku

Heroku is the next in our list of top AWS Lambda alternatives you must know. Heroku is a lucrative container-based PaaS used by developers to manage, deploy and scale modern and feature-rich applications.

Heroku is a flexible, elegant, and simple to use platform that offers developers an easier way to get their applications to the market. Even more, Heroku is a fully managed service provider giving developers the freedom of focusing on their core application without any stress of maintaining hardware, infrastructure, and servers.

In short, Heroku can offer you workflows, services, tools, and polyglot support, all designed to improve the productivity of developers in the best possible way.

To know more about the differences between AWS Lambda and Heroku, please read the article AWS Lambda vs Heroku.

3.    Google App Engine

Google App Engine is another cloud computing service provider which provides you a platform to develop scalable and modern applications with ease. The best thing about Google App Engine is that it offers you the ability to develop applications in the data centers of Google.

This way, you have to master one thing only, developing applications on the cloud. At the same time, the rest of the things, from resources to infrastructure management, will be done by Google App Engine.

4.    Azure Functions

Azure Functions is a compute on-demand and event-driven experience that can enhance the capabilities of the existing Azure application platform as well.

In simple words, Azure Functions is simply a serverless computing platform that can let you run event-trigger codes without getting in the hassle of managing and provisioning infrastructure. It is a trigger-based event management service so that it will run a script in response to different events.

Most importantly, this service can also be used effectively for different purposes. For example, to achieve decoupling, reusability, sharing, and improved throughput as well. As Microsoft Azure Functions is highly reliable, therefore, it can also be used for development environments.

5.    Dokku

Dokku is a robust PaaS solution that can meet even the most critical requirements of its users. It is a well-known platform for its simple interface and easy-to-use features. Users can easily utilize Dokku to deploy and manage scalable applications on the server environments.

Dokku is utilizing Docker and a Linux-based container system to manage app deployment. Most amazingly, remote server deployment can be performed by Dokku users efficiently. Ideally, this platform is meant to be used with the installation of a new virtual machine. However, the bootstrap installation will be enough to install and use all of its essential dependencies.

Overall, the use of Dokku as a PaaS can help you reduce your development and deployment costs. Even more, you will be able to accelerate your app’s time to market as well. Most importantly, Dokku is a free-to-use, open-source platform.

6.    The Serverless Framework

The Serverless Framework is another amazing AWS Lambda alternative. However, Serverless Framework is a popular choice for many people who want a faster turnout when it is about application development and deployment. It is an open-source platform that can let you develop and deploy serverless applications quickly.

This platform can build, deploy, and package code with a simple command for operations professionals and developers. Even more, the pre-managed services you can get with Serverless Framework can also speed up your code deployment process and reduce configuration time effectively.

7.    Fission.io

Fission is a popular platform used as a framework for Kubernetes and serverless functions. With Fission, you are allowed to create short-lived functions in any of your preferred languages and then map the piece of code to even triggers such as HTTP. Then, you can use Fission to deploy your written application codes with one command instantly.

Most importantly, when you are working with Fission, there are no docker registries that you have to manage. Even more, no container is needed to build with Fission as well. Overall, you can save a lot on the development and deployment of your modern applications with Fission.

8.    Docker

Docker is another open platform that can be used to develop, ship, and run applications. With the help of Docker, you can separate your apps from infrastructure to ensure quick and efficient delivery of your software.

Docker can also let you manage your infrastructure and applications in the same way with ease. You can also benefit from methodologies of Docker for shipping, deploying, and even testing your code quickly. As a result, you can reduce the time between code writing and application deployment significantly.

9.    Kubernetes

It is also called k8. However, Kubernetes is an amazing, open-source system to automate scaling, deployment, and centralized applications management. It can let you group containers based on logical units of applications to ensure easier discovery and management more effectively.

Most importantly, this platform has been designed on the same principles that help Google to run limitless containers weekly. Even more, you can also scale Kubernetes without even adding more pros to your team.

10. Nuclio

Nuclio is one of the most amazing, managed, and open-source serverless platforms that can be used to reduce development and maintenance overhead. Even more, you can also automate the process of deploying data science-based apps with Nuclio easily.

Overall, it is one of the fastest serverless computing platforms that you can ever have. Also, it is the first serverless computing platform supporting GPUs to ensure optimized sharing and utilization in the best possible way.

Conclusion

Serverless computing is the new yet beneficial trend of the present. It can help you to develop and deploy modern and feature-rich applications quickly and efficiently.

Here we have enlisted the top 10 alternatives to AWS Lambda to avoid its limitations. Make sure to choose the one you find best for you as per your preferences.

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