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AWS Lambda vs Fission: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore and compare the key differences between AWS Lambda and Fission. Both AWS Lambda and Fission are serverless computing platforms that allow developers to run code without the need for provisioning or managing servers. However, there are some significant differences between the two platforms that are important to consider when choosing which one to use for your projects.

  1. Execution Environment: AWS Lambda provides a fully-managed execution environment, meaning that AWS takes care of managing the underlying infrastructure and automatically scales it based on demand. On the other hand, Fission allows you to choose the execution environment, giving you more control and flexibility. You can run your functions on Kubernetes or any other available backend.

  2. Language Support: AWS Lambda supports a wide range of programming languages, including Python, Node.js, Java, C#, and Go. Fission, on the other hand, primarily focuses on supporting the Go programming language. Although Fission can support other languages through its generic container support, it is not as extensive as the language support provided by AWS Lambda.

  3. Cold Start Performance: Cold start refers to the time it takes for a function to start up and respond to a request when there is no pre-existing execution environment available. AWS Lambda has optimized its infrastructure to reduce cold starts and provides decent cold start performance. Fission, however, has a higher cold start latency compared to AWS Lambda, as it requires spinning up a new container for each function invocation.

  4. Integration with Other Services: AWS Lambda integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, allowing you to easily create serverless applications that leverage services like DynamoDB, S3, and API Gateway. Fission, on the other hand, does not have the same level of integration with other services. While you can still use Fission with other services, you may need to handle the integration manually.

  5. Scaling Features: AWS Lambda provides automatic scaling based on the demand, allowing your functions to handle large spikes in traffic without any manual intervention. Fission, on the other hand, relies on Kubernetes for scaling and requires you to configure and manage the scaling behavior yourself. This gives you more control over the scaling process but also requires more manual intervention.

  6. Pricing Model: AWS Lambda pricing is based on the number of function invocations and the total compute time used, while Fission pricing is based on the resources consumed by the underlying Kubernetes cluster. This means that the pricing model for AWS Lambda is more granular, allowing you to pay only for the resources you actually use, while Fission pricing may be less flexible in terms of optimization and cost control.

In summary, AWS Lambda offers a fully-managed execution environment, supports multiple programming languages, provides lower cold start latency, has extensive integration with other AWS services, offers automatic scaling, and has a more granular pricing model compared to Fission. On the other hand, Fission provides more control over the execution environment, primarily focuses on supporting the Go programming language, has higher cold start latency, requires manual integration with other services, requires manual scaling configuration, and has a pricing model based on Kubernetes cluster resources.

Advice on AWS Lambda and Fission

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!

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Replies (2)
Anis Zehani

I recommend this : -Spring reactive for back end : the fact it's reactive (async) it consumes half of the resources that a sync platform needs (so less CPU -> less money). -Angular : Web Front end ; it's gives you the possibility to use PWA which is a cheap replacement for a mobile app (but more less popular). -Docker images. -Kubernetes to orchestrate all the containers. -I Use Jenkins / blueocean, ansible for my CI/CD (with Github of course) -AWS of course : u can run a K8S cluster there, make it multi AZ (availability zones) to be highly available, use a load balancer and an auto scaler and ur good to go. -You can store data by taking any managed DB or u can deploy ur own (cheap but risky).

You pay less money, but u need some technical 2 - 3 guys to make that done.

Good luck

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My advice will be Front end: React Backend: Language: Java, Kotlin. Database: SQL: Postgres, MySQL, Aurora NOSQL: Mongo db. Caching: Redis. Public : Spring Webflux for async public facing operation. Admin api: Spring boot, Hibrernate, Rest API. Build Container image. Kuberenetes: AWS EKS, AWS ECS, Google GKE. Use Jenkins for CI/CD pipeline. Buddy works is good for AWS. Static content: Host on AWS S3 bucket, Use Cloudfront or Cloudflare as CDN.

Serverless Solution: Api gateway Lambda, Serveless Aurora (SQL). AWS S3 bucket.

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Decisions about AWS Lambda and Fission
Cory Bell

Netlfiy Functions uses AWS Lambda under the hood, but Netlify adds some nice sugar. The biggest advantage is the local development experience with netlify-cli. This allows you to run your functions locally with local configuration or pull configs from the Netlify dashboard. I built a health-check endpoint in about 2 minutes, and my send-email function in less than an hour.

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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

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Pros of AWS Lambda
Pros of Fission
  • 129
    No infrastructure
  • 83
    Cheap
  • 70
    Quick
  • 59
    Stateless
  • 47
    No deploy, no server, great sleep
  • 12
    AWS Lambda went down taking many sites with it
  • 6
    Event Driven Governance
  • 6
    Extensive API
  • 6
    Auto scale and cost effective
  • 6
    Easy to deploy
  • 5
    VPC Support
  • 3
    Integrated with various AWS services
  • 1
    Any language
  • 1
    Portability
  • 1
    Open source

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Cons of AWS Lambda
Cons of Fission
  • 7
    Cant execute ruby or go
  • 3
    Compute time limited
  • 1
    Can't execute PHP w/o significant effort
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is 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.

    What is 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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    What companies use AWS Lambda?
    What companies use Fission?
    See which teams inside your own company are using AWS Lambda or Fission.
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    What tools integrate with AWS Lambda?
    What tools integrate with Fission?

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    What are some alternatives to AWS Lambda and Fission?
    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.
    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.
    AWS Elastic Beanstalk
    Once you upload your application, Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring.
    AWS Step Functions
    AWS Step Functions makes it easy to coordinate the components of distributed applications and microservices using visual workflows. Building applications from individual components that each perform a discrete function lets you scale and change applications quickly.
    Google App Engine
    Google has a reputation for highly reliable, high performance infrastructure. With App Engine you can take advantage of the 10 years of knowledge Google has in running massively scalable, performance driven systems. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow.
    See all alternatives