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AWS Lambda vs stdlib: What are the differences?
What is AWS Lambda? Automatically run code in response to modifications to objects in Amazon S3 buckets, messages in Kinesis streams, or updates in DynamoDB. 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.
What is stdlib? The Standard Library for Functions as a Service. It is the fastest, easiest way to build infinitely scalable, self-healing APIs. Standard Library is based on Function as a Service ("serverless") architecture, initially popularized by AWS Lambda. You can use Standard Library to build modular, scalable APIs for yourself and other developers in minutes without having to manage servers, gateways, domains, write documentation, or build SDKs. Your development workflow has never been easier - focus on writing code you love, let Standard Library handle everything else.
AWS Lambda and stdlib can be categorized as "Serverless / Task Processing" tools.
Some of the features offered by AWS Lambda are:
- Extend other AWS services with custom logic
- Build custom back-end services
- Completely Automated Administration
On the other hand, stdlib provides the following key features:
- Code online — Browser-based editor
- Version-controlled API releases
- Easy API sharing and access control
stdlib is an open source tool with 3.64K GitHub stars and 181 GitHub forks. Here's a link to stdlib's open source repository on GitHub.
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 AWS Lambda
- No infrastructure129
- Cheap83
- Quick70
- Stateless59
- No deploy, no server, great sleep47
- AWS Lambda went down taking many sites with it12
- Event Driven Governance6
- Extensive API6
- Auto scale and cost effective6
- Easy to deploy6
- VPC Support5
- Integrated with various AWS services3
Pros of stdlib
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Cons of AWS Lambda
- Cant execute ruby or go7
- Compute time limited3
- Can't execute PHP w/o significant effort1