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  3. Serverless
  4. Serverless Task Processing
  5. AWS Lambda vs Azure Functions vs Cloud Functions for Firebase

AWS Lambda vs Azure Functions vs Cloud Functions for Firebase

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Stacks26.0K
Followers18.8K
Votes432
Azure Functions
Azure Functions
Stacks785
Followers705
Votes62
Cloud Functions for Firebase
Cloud Functions for Firebase
Stacks470
Followers397
Votes6

AWS Lambda vs Azure Functions vs Cloud Functions for Firebase: What are the differences?

Introduction:
AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and Cloud Functions for Firebase are serverless compute services that allow developers to run code without managing servers. Here are some key differences between them:

1. **Programming Languages Support**: AWS Lambda supports a variety of programming languages including Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, and C#. Azure Functions also supports multiple languages, including C#, F#, Node.js, Python, PHP, and TypeScript. On the other hand, Cloud Functions for Firebase primarily supports Node.js but can be extended to support other languages using a Node.js shim.

2. **Triggers and Events**: AWS Lambda can be triggered by various events such as API Gateway requests, S3 bucket events, and DynamoDB streams. Azure Functions also offer similar event triggers along with a wide range of services like GitHub, Azure Blob Storage, and more. Cloud Functions for Firebase are tightly integrated with Firebase services and can be triggered by HTTP requests, Firebase Realtime Database events, Firebase Authentication events, and Firebase Analytics events.

3. **Pricing Model**: AWS Lambda pricing is based on the number of requests and compute time, with a free tier for limited usage. Azure Functions have similar pricing based on the number of executions and resource consumption. Cloud Functions for Firebase are priced based on the number of invocations and the compute time required.

4. **Platform Integration**: AWS Lambda integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, allowing for easy scaling and management of resources within the AWS ecosystem. Azure Functions have tight integration with Azure services, enabling developers to leverage various cloud services easily. Cloud Functions for Firebase are specifically designed to work with Firebase ecosystem services, providing a streamlined development experience for mobile and web applications.

5. **Scaling**: AWS Lambda automatically scales based on the incoming load, ensuring that resources are provisioned as needed. Azure Functions also offer automatic scaling based on the number of incoming requests. Cloud Functions for Firebase also provide auto-scaling capabilities to handle varying workloads efficiently.

6. **Development Environment**: AWS Lambda offers a local development environment for testing functions before deployment. Azure Functions also provide a local development environment with debugging capabilities. Cloud Functions for Firebase can be tested locally using the Firebase CLI tools, enabling developers to simulate function triggers and responses before deploying to the cloud.

In Summary, AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and Cloud Functions for Firebase differ in terms of programming language support, triggers and events, pricing model, platform integration, scaling capabilities, and development environment options.

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Advice on AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Functions for Firebase

Tim
Tim

CTO at Checkly Inc.

Sep 18, 2019

Needs adviceonHerokuHerokuAWS LambdaAWS Lambda

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.

The setup

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

357k views357k
Comments
Mark
Mark

Nov 2, 2020

Needs adviceonMicrosoft AzureMicrosoft Azure

Need advice on what platform, systems and tools to use.

Evaluating whether to start a new digital business for which we will need to build a website that handles all traffic. Website only right now. May add smartphone apps later. No desktop app will ever be added. Website to serve various countries and languages. B2B and B2C type customers. Need to handle heavy traffic, be low cost, and scale well.

We are open to either build it on AWS or on Microsoft Azure.

Apologies if I'm leaving out some info. My first post. :) Thanks in advance!

133k views133k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Azure Functions
Azure Functions
Cloud Functions for Firebase
Cloud Functions for Firebase

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 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.

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.

Extend other AWS services with custom logic;Build custom back-end services;Completely Automated Administration;Built-in Fault Tolerance;Automatic Scaling;Integrated Security Model;Bring Your Own Code;Pay Per Use;Flexible Resource Model
Easily schedule event-driven tasks across services;Expose Functions as HTTP API endpoints;Scale Functions based on customer demand;Develop how you want, using a browser-based UI or existing tools;Get continuous deployment, remote debugging, and authentication out of the box
-
Statistics
Stacks
26.0K
Stacks
785
Stacks
470
Followers
18.8K
Followers
705
Followers
397
Votes
432
Votes
62
Votes
6
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 129
    No infrastructure
  • 83
    Cheap
  • 70
    Quick
  • 59
    Stateless
  • 47
    No deploy, no server, great sleep
Cons
  • 7
    Cant execute ruby or go
  • 3
    Compute time limited
  • 1
    Can't execute PHP w/o significant effort
Pros
  • 14
    Pay only when invoked
  • 11
    Great developer experience for C#
  • 9
    Multiple languages supported
  • 7
    Great debugging support
  • 5
    Can be used as lightweight https service
Cons
  • 1
    Not suited for long-running applications
  • 1
    Sporadic server & language runtime issues
  • 1
    Poor support for Linux environments
  • 1
    No persistent (writable) file system available
Pros
  • 4
    Up and running
  • 1
    Multi-region
  • 1
    Affordable
Integrations
No integrations available
Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps
Java
Java
Bitbucket
Bitbucket
Node.js
Node.js
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure
GitHub
GitHub
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code
JavaScript
JavaScript
Azure Cosmos DB
Azure Cosmos DB
C#
C#
Firebase
Firebase
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Functions
Google Cloud Functions

What are some alternatives to AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Functions for Firebase?

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

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.

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.

Lambada Framework

Lambada Framework

Lambada framework is a REST framework that implements JAX-RS API and lets you deploy your applications to AWS Lambda and API Gateway in a serverless fashion. With Lambada you can migrate the existing JAX-RS applications with a very little effort and build scalable applications without having to deal with servers.

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