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Architect vs Serverless: What are the differences?
Key Differences between Architect and Serverless
Architect and Serverless are both frameworks that are used to build applications on the cloud. However, they have some key differences that set them apart.
Architecture: The first major difference between Architect and Serverless is their architectural approach. Architect follows a monolithic architecture, where the application is divided into components or modules, whereas Serverless follows a microservices architecture, where the application is divided into smaller, independent services.
Deployment: Another key difference is in the deployment process. Architect uses a traditional deployment approach, where the application is deployed as a whole, while Serverless uses a serverless deployment approach, where each service is deployed individually, allowing for faster and more efficient updates and scaling.
Scaling: Scalability is an important aspect of cloud applications. Architect provides a more granular approach to scaling, allowing for scaling at different levels, such as module or component level. On the other hand, Serverless offers automatic scaling, where services can scale based on demand without the need for manual intervention.
Vendor Lock-in: Vendor lock-in is a concern for many developers. Architect is a framework that is provider-agnostic, meaning it can be used with different cloud providers, while Serverless is tightly integrated with specific cloud providers, such as AWS Lambda or Azure Functions.
Cost: Cost is another differentiating factor. Architect follows a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the resources you use, while Serverless also follows a pay-as-you-go model, but with more fine-grained billing, as you are billed for individual service invocations rather than the entire application.
Community and Support: Lastly, the community and support around these frameworks differ. Architect has a smaller community compared to Serverless, but it has a dedicated team maintaining and supporting the framework. Serverless, on the other hand, has a larger and more active community, as well as official support from cloud providers.
In summary, Architect and Serverless differ in their architectural approach, deployment process, scaling capabilities, vendor lock-in, cost model, and community support.
When adding a new feature to Checkly rearchitecting some older piece, I tend to pick Heroku for rolling it out. But not always, because sometimes I pick AWS Lambda . The short story:
- Developer Experience trumps everything.
- AWS Lambda is cheap. Up to a limit though. This impact not only your wallet.
- If you need geographic spread, AWS is lonely at the top.
Recently, I was doing a brainstorm at a startup here in Berlin on the future of their infrastructure. They were ready to move on from their initial, almost 100% Ec2 + Chef based setup. Everything was on the table. But we crossed out a lot quite quickly:
- Pure, uncut, self hosted Kubernetes — way too much complexity
- Managed Kubernetes in various flavors — still too much complexity
- Zeit — Maybe, but no Docker support
- Elastic Beanstalk — Maybe, bit old but does the job
- Heroku
- Lambda
It became clear a mix of PaaS and FaaS was the way to go. What a surprise! That is exactly what I use for Checkly! But when do you pick which model?
I chopped that question up into the following categories:
- Developer Experience / DX 🤓
- Ops Experience / OX 🐂 (?)
- Cost 💵
- Lock in 🔐
Read the full post linked below for all details
Pros of Architect
Pros of Serverless
- API integration14
- Supports cloud functions for Google, Azure, and IBM7
- Lower cost3
- Auto scale1
- Openwhisk1
