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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Serverless
  4. Serverless Task Processing
  5. Apache OpenWhisk vs OpenFaaS

Apache OpenWhisk vs OpenFaaS

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache OpenWhisk
Apache OpenWhisk
Stacks58
Followers149
Votes7
OpenFaaS
OpenFaaS
Stacks54
Followers234
Votes17
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks2.0K

Apache OpenWhisk vs OpenFaaS: What are the differences?

Apache OpenWhisk and OpenFaaS are both serverless computing platforms that offer a scalable and efficient way to deploy and run applications. However, there are key differences between the two platforms that make them suited for different use cases.
  1. Runtime environment: Apache OpenWhisk provides a fully managed runtime environment where developers can write functions using various programming languages, such as Python, Node.js, and Java. On the other hand, OpenFaaS allows developers to use any container image as a function, which gives them more flexibility in choosing their preferred runtime environment.

  2. Architecture: While both OpenWhisk and OpenFaaS follow the serverless architecture principles, they have different underlying architectures. OpenWhisk follows a microservices-based architecture, where each component runs as a separate service. In contrast, OpenFaaS follows a simpler and more lightweight architecture, utilizing a single container orchestrator.

  3. Community support: Apache OpenWhisk is an open-source project supported by the Apache Software Foundation, which means it benefits from a large and active community of contributors. OpenFaaS, on the other hand, is also open-source but has a smaller community compared to OpenWhisk. The size of the community can impact the availability of community-built plugins, support, and documentation.

  4. Integration and ecosystem: OpenWhisk provides built-in integrations with popular services and platforms, such as IBM Cloud, and has a rich ecosystem with many available plugins and tools. OpenFaaS, while also offering some integrations, has a more limited set of integrations compared to OpenWhisk. The available integrations and ecosystem can affect the ease of integration with other services and tools.

  5. Scalability and performance: OpenWhisk is designed to handle massive scale and can scale up and down to meet the demands of applications with high traffic and workload. It leverages container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes. OpenFaaS, although it can also scale horizontally, may not offer the same level of scalability and performance as OpenWhisk, especially for large-scale applications.

  6. Management and monitoring: OpenWhisk provides a robust management and monitoring interface that allows users to track the execution of functions, monitor resource utilization, and manage access control. OpenFaaS, while offering some management and monitoring capabilities, may not provide the same level of granularity and control as OpenWhisk.

In Summary, Apache OpenWhisk and OpenFaaS differ in their runtime environment, architecture, community support, integration ecosystem, scalability and performance, and management and monitoring capabilities. Choose OpenWhisk for a fully managed runtime environment, rich ecosystem, and high scalability, while OpenFaaS offers more flexibility in runtime choices and a simpler architecture.

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Detailed Comparison

Apache OpenWhisk
Apache OpenWhisk
OpenFaaS
OpenFaaS

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.

Serverless Functions Made Simple for Docker and Kubernetes

Serverless functions;FaaS;Fine-grained resource consumption;Use any language;Containers as functions; service;Functions-as-a-Service;Function composition;Step Functions;Docker;Kubernetes;Open source community;Apache
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
2.0K
Stacks
58
Stacks
54
Followers
149
Followers
234
Votes
7
Votes
17
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 4
    You are not tied to a provider. IBM available however
  • 3
    Still exploring... its just intresting
Pros
  • 5
    Open source
  • 4
    Ease
  • 3
    Autoscaling
  • 2
    Documentation
  • 2
    Community
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code
JavaScript
JavaScript
Python
Python
npm
npm
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Docker
Docker
Swift
Swift
Java
Java
Slack
Slack
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Docker
Docker

What are some alternatives to Apache OpenWhisk, OpenFaaS?

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.

Google Cloud Functions

Google Cloud Functions

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

Knative

Knative

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

Nuclio

Nuclio

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

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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