AWS Lambda vs. Make

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

Integromat is the best tool for business automation in my opinion because unlike Zapier it allows us to integrate with any API even if the app is not available which allows us to create automation even with the less known apps that we use or the ones that we built internally for our own company.

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

• UI/UX Simplicity and Features
• Workflows are explained in details and even people without IT background can use the tool.
• Consumption is nicely tracked.
• Myriad of existing templates, solutions, and readymade connectors.

• 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

• There are always new platforms and connections that we'd like to see
• More flexibility in paying for operations (tasks) on a sliding scale, instead of by tier
• More thorough support documentation on connecting various platforms and troubleshooting errors

Incentivized

At this point, it is firmly embedded in the DNA of the business and to give up the ability to automate workflows and create integrations on the fly would be a terrible idea.

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

Make's easy to understand user interface helps you to visualize what's happening at all times. Could use some tweaks around the navigation from a scenario specifically in the folders and back navigations. I can't tell you the amount of time wasted in that area. When you branch, you can't bring a branch back together in the same scenario which is kind of a bummer as well.

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

The pricing schema is very attractive, almost 50% lower than the competition. You could start from free and then grow. It has a pretty big library of connections to other apps and services, which really helps you when everything is a mess. Integromat has a really easy-to-use interface. You could do almost everything with fewer than 5 clicks. Scenarios (automation steps to complete a routine) have graphics so you can configure them more easily.

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

Integromat allows us to do everything we used to do on Zapier but it doesn't limit us to only the popular apps, with Integromat we're integrating custom APIs and we get data from different servers through GET requests and it's exactly what we needed and Zapier couldn't provide it.

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

• We used too many credits multiple times and had to buy them additionally, there are no prevention systems to setup to alert before it happens.
• Some consumption is difficult to understand and requires time and digging.
• It requires heavy internal effort to simplify things in Make in order for it to operate cheaper.
• Initial IT setup is paramount and determines a lot.