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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Databases
  4. Mobile Database
  5. AWS Lambda vs Realm

AWS Lambda vs Realm

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Realm
Realm
Stacks279
Followers441
Votes16
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Stacks26.0K
Followers18.8K
Votes432

AWS Lambda vs Realm: What are the differences?

  1. 1. Scalability - AWS Lambda and Realm differ in terms of scalability. AWS Lambda is designed to automatically scale based on the demand and can handle a large number of requests without requiring any manual intervention. On the other hand, Realm's scalability is limited by the resources available on the device, as it operates locally on mobile or client-side devices and does not have the same level of automatic scalability as AWS Lambda.

  2. 2. Deployment - Another key difference between AWS Lambda and Realm is the deployment process. AWS Lambda allows developers to deploy their code onto the AWS cloud infrastructure, making it accessible through various triggers such as API Gateway or event sources. In contrast, Realm is primarily used for mobile or client-side applications and is typically deployed as part of the mobile app itself, eliminating the need for an external deployment process.

  3. 3. Complexity - While both AWS Lambda and Realm offer serverless functionality, they differ in terms of complexity. AWS Lambda provides a highly flexible and configurable environment for developers, allowing them to write complex serverless functions using various programming languages. On the other hand, Realm offers a simpler and more opinionated approach, focusing on client-side data synchronization and offline capabilities for mobile apps. This makes Realm easier to use for developers who are primarily focused on mobile application development rather than serverless architecture.

  4. 4. Pricing - AWS Lambda and Realm also differ in terms of pricing. AWS Lambda follows a pay-per-use model, where developers are only charged based on the number of requests and the execution time of their functions. On the other hand, Realm operates under a subscription-based pricing model, where developers pay a fixed monthly fee based on the number of users or devices accessing the Realm database. This pricing model may be more suitable for small to medium-sized applications with a predictable user base.

  5. 5. Integration - AWS Lambda and Realm differ in terms of integration capabilities. AWS Lambda can be easily integrated with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, DynamoDB, or API Gateway, allowing developers to build complex serverless architectures. Realm, on the other hand, offers seamless integration with mobile development frameworks and provides SDKs for iOS, Android, and other platforms, enabling developers to easily incorporate data synchronization and offline functionality into their mobile apps.

  6. 6. Infrastructure management - Another key difference between AWS Lambda and Realm is the level of infrastructure management required. In the case of AWS Lambda, developers are responsible for managing and configuring the underlying infrastructure to some extent, such as specifying the amount of memory, setting up IAM roles, or defining environment variables. On the other hand, Realm abstracts away the infrastructure management aspect, allowing developers to focus more on app development rather than infrastructure setup and maintenance.

In summary, AWS Lambda and Realm differ in terms of scalability, deployment process, complexity, pricing, integration capabilities, and infrastructure management.

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Advice on Realm, AWS Lambda

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

Realm
Realm
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda

The Realm Mobile Platform is a next-generation data layer for applications. Realm is reactive, concurrent, and lightweight, allowing you to work with live, native objects.

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.

Feels like Home - Realm’s data structures look like the Objects and Arrays of your language, but provide additional features such as: querying, relationships & graphs, thread safety, and more.;Memory-Efficient - Realm is not built on SQLite. Instead, a custom C++ core is used to provide memory-efficient access to your data by using Realm objects, which usually consume less RAM than native objects.;F-F-Fast! - Realm offers extraordinary performance compared to SQLite and other persistence solutions.
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
Statistics
Stacks
279
Stacks
26.0K
Followers
441
Followers
18.8K
Votes
16
Votes
432
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 7
    Good
  • 3
    Cloud Syncing
  • 3
    Elegant API
  • 2
    React Native Support
  • 1
    Strong Adoption Growth
Cons
  • 1
    No offline support for web till now
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

What are some alternatives to Realm, AWS Lambda?

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

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.

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