Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
AWS Lambda vs Knative: What are the differences?
Introduction AWS Lambda and Knative are two popular serverless computing platforms that allow developers to run code without having to provision or manage servers. While both platforms provide similar functionality, there are several key differences between them. This article will explore these differences in detail.
Deployment Model: AWS Lambda follows a fully managed approach, where developers simply have to upload their code and the platform takes care of the rest. On the other hand, Knative is a Kubernetes-based platform that provides a more flexible and portable deployment model. It allows developers to leverage features of Kubernetes and deploy their functions anywhere, giving them more control over their infrastructure.
Vendor Lock-in: AWS Lambda operates within the AWS ecosystem, which means that developers are tied to the AWS infrastructure and services provided by Amazon. In contrast, Knative is an open-source project that can run on any Kubernetes distribution, providing developers with more options and avoiding vendor lock-in. This makes Knative a more attractive choice for organizations looking for multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud deployments.
Scaling: While both platforms support auto-scaling, AWS Lambda has a more fine-grained approach to scaling. It can scale individual functions independently based on the incoming workload, allowing for more efficient resource utilization. Knative, on the other hand, scales at the level of the entire container, which may result in over-provisioning or under-provisioning of resources depending on the workload.
Pricing Model: AWS Lambda charges based on the number of requests and the duration of execution, with different pricing tiers for different regions. Knative, being an open-source project, does not have its own pricing model. Instead, the cost of running Knative functions depends on the underlying infrastructure on which it is deployed, such as Kubernetes clusters, which may incur additional costs.
Event Sources: AWS Lambda provides a wide range of event sources, including HTTP requests, database updates, and file uploads, allowing developers to easily trigger their functions based on various inputs. Knative, being built on Kubernetes, also supports a variety of event sources but may require additional configuration to integrate with certain third-party services.
Maturity and Ecosystem: AWS Lambda is a mature and well-established service that has been widely adopted by organizations of all sizes. It has a robust ecosystem of tools, integrations, and community support. Knative, on the other hand, is a relatively newer project and may not have the same level of maturity or community adoption. However, it benefits from being built on Kubernetes, which itself has a large and active community.
In Summary, AWS Lambda and Knative differ in their deployment model, vendor lock-in, scaling approach, pricing model, event sources, and maturity/ ecosystem. These differences make each platform more suitable for specific use cases and requirements.
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!
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
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.
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.
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 Knative
- Portability5
- Autoscaling4
- Open source3
- Eventing3
- Secure Eventing3
- On top of Kubernetes3
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of AWS Lambda
- Cant execute ruby or go7
- Compute time limited3
- Can't execute PHP w/o significant effort1