AWS Fargate vs. AWS Lambda

If you need to deploy Docker containers, Amazon Fargate is a very good fit. It integrates very well with other AWS services like RDS, EFS, and Secrets manager. You can have a very robust application using those services. In case you have many containers to deploy, it is however more expensive
that if you use other services like ECS or EKS, since they allow you to
share the same infrastructure to deploy multiple containers.

Incentivized

Lambda excels at event-driven, short-lived tasks, such as processing files or building simple APIs. However, it's less ideal for long-running, computationally intensive, or applications that rely on carrying the state between jobs. Cold starts and constant load can easily balloon the costs.

Incentivized

• scalability
• ease of use
• agility to up or downsize

Incentivized

• No provisioning required - we don't have to pay anything upfront
• Serverless deployment - it gets executed only when request comes and we pay only for the time the request is getting executed
• Integrates well with AWS CloudWatch triggers so it is easy to setup scheduled tasks like cron jobs

Incentivized

• can't think of any

Incentivized

• Developing test cases for Lambda functions can be difficult. For functions that require some sort of input it can be tough to develop the proper payload and event for a test.
• For the uninitiated, deploying functions with Infrastructure as Code tools can be a challenging undertaking.
• Logging the output of a function feels disjointed from running the function in the console. A tighter integration with operational logging would be appreciated, perhaps being able to view function logs from the Lambda console instead of having to navigate over to CloudWatch.
• Sometimes its difficult to determine the correct permissions needed for Lambda execution from other AWS services.

Incentivized

It's a very practical service to use. If you need to deploy any application with a Database, disk storage, you're pretty much set.

Everything around that can be taken care of using other AWS services. Like secrets manager, certificate manager, RDS ...

And the CI/CD part is also very easy to setup, you only need on AWS CLI command to trigger a deployment, and done !

Incentivized

I give it a seven is usability because it's AWS. Their UI's are always clunkier than the competition and their documentation is rather cumbersome. There's SO MUCH to dig through and it's a gamble if you actually end up finding the corresponding info if it will actually help. Like I said before, going to google with a specific problem is likely a better route because AWS is quite ubiquitous and chances are you're not the first to encounter the problem. That being said, using SAM (Serverless application model) and it's SAM Local environment makes running local instances of your Lambdas in dev environments painless and quite fun. Using Nodejs + Lambda + SAM Local + VS Code debugger = AWESOME.

Incentivized

AWS provides different support tiers. They are usually very reactive and are able to help solve the issues very quickly.

As for everything, the higher the support tier you get, the better and faster support you get.

If you're also a part of big company, you probably have solution architects at your disposal to help you with any inqueries.

Incentivized

Amazon consistently provides comprehensive and easy-to-parse documentation of all AWS features and services. Most development team members find what they need with a quick internet search of the AWS documentation available online. If you need advanced support, though, you might need to engage an AWS engineer, and that could be an unexpected (or unwelcome) expense.

Incentivized

We found the extra cost saved us frustration and time and ultimately money in the long run

Incentivized

AWS Lambda is good for short running functions, and ideally in response to events within AWS. Google App Engine is a more robust environment which can have complex code running for long periods of time, and across more than one instance of hardware. Google App Engine allows for both front-end and back-end infrastructure, while AWS Lambda is only for small back-end functions

Incentivized

Pricing and billing of AWS Fargate is loosely tied to your exisiting AWS billing. You're unlikely to only use Fargate in your AWS subscription, so you get billed for everything alltoghter.

Fargate is naturally a bit more expensive that usuel docker services, but with careful planning and architecturing, you can have a very manageable cost.

You can also rely on Saving plans to reduce your bill.

Incentivized

• easier to optimize our computer costs
• transition from server to serverless was easier once we decided to adopt Fargate

Incentivized

• Positive - Only paying for when code is run, unlike virtual machines where you pay always regardless of processing power usage.
• Positive - Scalability and accommodating larger amounts of demand is much cheaper. Instead of scaling up virtual machines and increasing the prices you pay for that, you are just increasing the number of times your lambda function is run.
• Negative - Debugging/troubleshooting, and developing for lambda functions take a bit more time to get used to, and migrating code from virtual machines and normal processes to Lambda functions can take a bit of time.

Incentivized