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  1. Stackups
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  5. Google Cloud Functions vs Knative

Google Cloud Functions vs Knative

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Google Cloud Functions
Google Cloud Functions
Stacks478
Followers479
Votes25
Knative
Knative
Stacks86
Followers342
Votes21
GitHub Stars5.9K
Forks1.2K

Google Cloud Functions vs Knative: What are the differences?

Introduction

Google Cloud Functions and Knative are both serverless platforms that allow developers to deploy and run applications without dealing with underlying infrastructure. However, there are key differences between the two that distinguish them from each other.

  1. Platform: Google Cloud Functions is a fully managed serverless platform provided by Google Cloud, while Knative is an open-source platform that runs on Kubernetes. Google Cloud Functions is a more integrated and managed service, while Knative provides more flexibility and control over the underlying infrastructure.

  2. Supported Languages: Google Cloud Functions supports several programming languages, including Node.js, Python, Go, and Java. Knative, on the other hand, supports any language that can run on Kubernetes, giving developers a wider range of language choices.

  3. Scaling: Both Google Cloud Functions and Knative automatically scale applications based on incoming traffic. However, Google Cloud Functions provides automatic scaling out of the box, while scaling with Knative requires additional configuration and setup.

  4. Event Triggers: Google Cloud Functions provides built-in event triggers for various Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub, and Firestore. Knative, on the other hand, supports custom event sources through its eventing system, allowing developers to build more complex event-driven applications.

  5. Vendor Lock-in: Google Cloud Functions is a proprietary service offered by Google Cloud, which means that applications deployed on Google Cloud Functions are tied to the Google Cloud platform. Knative, being an open-source project, offers more portability and allows applications to be deployed on any Kubernetes-based infrastructure.

  6. Managed Services Integration: As part of the Google Cloud ecosystem, Google Cloud Functions integrates seamlessly with other services provided by Google Cloud, such as Cloud Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and Firestore. Knative, being a more generic platform, requires additional configuration and integration work to use managed services from different cloud providers.

In summary, Google Cloud Functions is a fully managed serverless platform provided by Google Cloud, while Knative is an open-source platform that runs on Kubernetes. Google Cloud Functions offers a more integrated and managed solution with built-in event triggers and easy integration with other Google Cloud services. On the other hand, Knative provides more flexibility, control, and portability by running on Kubernetes and supporting any programming language.

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Advice on Google Cloud Functions, Knative

Clifford
Clifford

Software Engineer at Bidvest Advisory Services

Mar 28, 2020

Decided

Run cloud service containers instead of cloud-native services

  • Running containers means that your microservices are not "cooked" into a cloud provider's architecture.
  • Moving from one cloud to the next means that you simply spin up new instances of your containers in the new cloud using that cloud's container service.
  • Start redirecting your traffic to the new resources.
  • Turn off the containers in the cloud you migrated from.
71.3k views71.3k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Google Cloud Functions
Google Cloud Functions
Knative
Knative

Construct applications from bite-sized business logic billed to the nearest 100 milliseconds, only while your code is running

Knative provides a set of middleware components that are essential to build modern, source-centric, and container-based applications that can run anywhere: on premises, in the cloud, or even in a third-party data center

-
Serving - Scale to zero, request-driven compute model; Build - Cloud-native source to container orchestration; Events - Universal subscription, delivery and management of events; Serverless add-on on GKE - Enable GCP managed serverless stack on Kubernetes
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
5.9K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.2K
Stacks
478
Stacks
86
Followers
479
Followers
342
Votes
25
Votes
21
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 7
    Serverless Applications
  • 5
    Its not AWS
  • 4
    Simplicity
  • 3
    Free Tiers and Trainging
  • 2
    Simple config with GitLab CI/CD
Cons
  • 1
    Node.js only
  • 0
    Typescript Support
  • 0
    Blaze, pay as you go
Pros
  • 5
    Portability
  • 4
    Autoscaling
  • 3
    On top of Kubernetes
  • 3
    Secure Eventing
  • 3
    Open source
Integrations
Firebase
Firebase
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Stackdriver
Stackdriver
Google Kubernetes Engine
Google Kubernetes Engine

What are some alternatives to Google Cloud Functions, Knative?

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you. You can use AWS Lambda to extend other AWS services with custom logic, or create your own back-end services that operate at AWS scale, performance, and security.

Azure Functions

Azure Functions

Azure Functions is an event driven, compute-on-demand experience that extends the existing Azure application platform with capabilities to implement code triggered by events occurring in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems.

Google Cloud Run

Google Cloud Run

A managed compute platform that enables you to run stateless containers that are invocable via HTTP requests. It's serverless by abstracting away all infrastructure management.

Serverless

Serverless

Build applications comprised of microservices that run in response to events, auto-scale for you, and only charge you when they run. This lowers the total cost of maintaining your apps, enabling you to build more logic, faster. The Framework uses new event-driven compute services, like AWS Lambda, Google CloudFunctions, and more.

OpenFaaS

OpenFaaS

Serverless Functions Made Simple for Docker and Kubernetes

Nuclio

Nuclio

nuclio is portable across IoT devices, laptops, on-premises datacenters and cloud deployments, eliminating cloud lock-ins and enabling hybrid solutions.

Apache OpenWhisk

Apache OpenWhisk

OpenWhisk is an open source serverless platform. It is enterprise grade and accessible to all developers thanks to its superior programming model and tooling. It powers IBM Cloud Functions, Adobe I/O Runtime, Naver, Nimbella among others.

Cloud Functions for Firebase

Cloud Functions for Firebase

Cloud Functions for Firebase lets you create functions that are triggered by Firebase products, such as changes to data in the Realtime Database, uploads to Cloud Storage, new user sign ups via Authentication, and conversion events in Analytics.

AWS Batch

AWS Batch

It enables developers, scientists, and engineers to easily and efficiently run hundreds of thousands of batch computing jobs on AWS. It dynamically provisions the optimal quantity and type of compute resources (e.g., CPU or memory optimized instances) based on the volume and specific resource requirements of the batch jobs submitted.

Fission

Fission

Write short-lived functions in any language, and map them to HTTP requests (or other event triggers). Deploy functions instantly with one command. There are no containers to build, and no Docker registries to manage.

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