Here’s a roundup of the most popular Serverless frameworks you can get your hands on! Serverless computing is all the rage amongst those who love the idea of having to manage less while having time to create more. And even though the tech is still quite new, many developers and engineers are going out of their way to building exciting solutions for the future of Serverless operations. As I am sure you know already, Serverless does not precisely mean without a server. It just means fewer servers and more functions. And if you’re looking for a reliable FaaS (Functions as a Service) platform for your next project, check out our previous writeup of the best Serverless computing platforms. That being said, let’s take a look at the frameworks available to us. We’ll wrap things up with some exciting projects being developed in the Serverless space, so make sure that you stick around for those!
AWS Amplify
Build scalable serverless apps quickly for web and mobile with AWS Amplify framework and get endless flexibility. Configure your serverless backends with data, storage, authentication, and more by using smart workflows. Connect mobile and web apps to existing or new AWS resources with fewer lines of code. You can host and deploy single-page web apps, server-side rendered apps, and status websites in a few clicks. It also lets you manage content and app users easily. AWS Amplify helps front-end mobile and web developers to create full-stack apps on AWS faster and customize the app whenever you need. Amplify supports many web frameworks such as React, Angular, JavaScript, Vue.js, Next.js, etc., and mobile platforms such as iOS, Ionic, Flutter, Android, and React Native. You can integrate with many UI components of Amplify to accelerate app development. Get many features and tools such as authentication, interactions, functions, DataStore, user management, API (REST, GraphQL), Analytics, AI/ML predictions, storage, PubSub, push notifications, etc., for development. In addition, you have Managed Hosting, PR previews, CI/CD, custom domains, and monitoring for deployment.
Midway
Get the Node.js serverless framework for creating traditional server-side applications, small programs, microservices, and building serverless services with Midway. It is written in typescript that uses an IoC injection mechanism to separate the app’s logic and make the easier development of the large Node.js apps more natural. Midway can use express, EggJS, or koa as basic frameworks. It provides basic solutions such as GRPC, Dubbo.js, RabbitMQ, and Socket.io for independent use. Additionally, Midway works as a Node.js serverless web framework for full-stack or front-end developers. Midway lets you build next-gen apps that run on a container, VM, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, and Tencent Cloud. You can also integrate it easily with Vue and React. You will find many features like:
Group and scalable plugins Advanced group Middleware compatibility and architecture Decoupling capability and application layering Next-gen development experience Supports koa middleware and Egg plugins.
Webiny
Get everything you need to architect, deploy, and build serverless apps with the Webiny Serverless application framework. It is designed for different use cases. You can modify the architecture, tech stack and adapt to the needs of your organization and project. Build business websites and applications based on SEO, routing, pre-rendering, security, deployment, bundling, and more. Create internal or external APIs by extracting the GraphQL resolvers. Don’t be constrained with a single app; build applications that use various databases. You can use the NodeJS database drivers to interact with outside databases. Webiny provides code bundling, IaC, deployment mechanisms, and project organization. Add the product to the top of the list and offer the SaaS to the whole world. Secure the part of or the entire applications with ACL with the help of built-in AWS Cognito and security framework. Add support for Auth0, OKTA, and others. You will get headless CMS, page builder, form builder, file manager, and many more. Generate boilerplate code by using CLI plugins from the lambda functions to the new GraphQL APIs. Webiny’s Admin UI contains more than thirty different React components. You will also get DDoS protection, CDN, and 11 9’s durability of the data. Webiny saves your time in trial and error and research.
AWS Chalice
Are you searching for a framework to write serverless applications in Python? Try AWS Chalice that allows you to build and deploy apps through AWS Lambda. It allows you to create REST APIs, perform tasks running periodically, connect lambda functions with an S3 event and SQS queue, and more AWS resources. Just after writing your code, Chalice will let you run and deploy your application quickly. Chalice supports every version of Python that AWS Lambda supports, including Python 2.7, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8. Configure all the credentials before deploying the application. But if you have configured it already to run AWS CLI or boto3, skip this. After deploying, you can do modifications wherever you need and redeploy the changes. Take tutorials, topics, and API references for a better version of your knowledge.
Zappa
Zappa is a serverless framework for creating Python apps. It makes the work easier in building and deploying serverless and event-driven Python apps on API Gateway and AWS Lambda. Use it to enjoy zero maintenance, zero downtime, and infinite scaling at a minimal cost of the current deployments. Before going for installations and configurations, make sure you have Python 3.x and an AWS account and proper installation of the AWS credentials file. You can also install Zappa easily using pip. Zappa automatically sets up the deployment settings. Once the settings are properly configured, deploy the app to a production stage in a single command line. Use template command if you want API Gateway CloudFormation template. Deploy Zappa to custom subdomains and domain names with SSL certificates, AWS Certificate Manager certificates, and Let’s Encrypt certificates. Enable the secure endpoints on the API Gateway such as API key, IAM policy, API Gateway Lambda Authorizers, Cognito User Pool Authorizer, and API Gateway Resource Policy. Moreover, you can set environment variables like local environment, remote AWS environment, and remote environment via S3 file,
Architect
Create, deploy, and maintain next-generation AWS cloud function-based serverless infrastructure with full local, offline workflows, and more. This is a reasonably sophisticated project and requires that you read up on the project philosophy and the documentation page as a whole.
Up
Up is a framework that helps you deploy Serverless applications with infinite scalability potential. Furthermore, you can use Up to deploy static websites, APIs, and more. All this gives you the flexibility to work on what truly matters to you. Fortunately, Up deploys traditional HTTP server instances, so you’re not asked to have to learn some new protocol. Instead, use your favorite framework like Django or Express to get yourself started.
Claudia.js
Claudia.js gives developers a means to push their Node.js-based projects to Lambda systems and the API. Claudia will automate deployment tasks, configuration and will automatically set up your JavaScript environment for modern development. So, what does this mean to you? By using Claudia, you can jumpstart your microservices journey in minutes. As a result, you have a lot less to think about and much more time to focus on solving real problems. The main reasons to use Claudia include:
Deploy, update, and manage your instances with a single command Works flawlessly with NPM packages Integrated boilerplate structure, giving you more room to focus on your tasks at hand. Version management so you can work on multiple versions simultaneously Small learning curve
Jets
Do you love Ruby? Then you might just find yourself enjoying Jets — a serverless Ruby Framework for creating and deploying microservices. The framework includes all the necessary tooling to help you generate API structures and deploy them to Lambda. Jets also works for writing separate functions that you can use to stitch together different services and resources provided by AWS. The way that Jets works are that the framework converts your existing code into functions for Lambda and other AWS services. As a result, you can skip things like deployment and provisioning to spend more time writing functional code.
Pulumi
Pulumi provides a seamless SDK to help you create and deploy software to any cloud-based platform. The SDK supports containers, hosted services, core infrastructure, and containers. You can write code in any language you like; Pulumi will provision and manage your resources on service providers such as GCP, AWS, Kubernetes, and Azure.
Serverless
I know what you’re thinking, “Someone was lucky enough to get the domain name Serverless.com and are simply cashing in their luck!”, and I have to tell you that this is not the case. The Serverless Framework has some 30,000ish stars on GitHub, making this the most popular serverless framework you can find. So, what can you do with this framework? First and foremost, you can create apps that are using microservices as a means to respond to events, etc. E.g., Your apps only respond when there is a definitive call and scale up and down based on demand. As a result, you can save a ton of money that would otherwise be spent on upkeeping idle services. The Framework uses new event-driven compute services, like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and more. It’s a command-line tool, providing scaffolding, workflow automation, and best practices for developing and deploying your serverless architecture. It’s also completely extensible via plugins.
Auth0
If you’re passionate about the concept of Serverless, then you’ll likely have heard of the Serverless Framework — the one that we mentioned earlier in the article. Auth0 has put together its efforts to build Auth0 Web tasks, an effective add-on for all you Serverless Framework users. The project is called Webtask, and you can find the homepage here. In essence, Webtask can be used to create apps without the need to worry about your infrastructure compatibility. Write server-side logic and deploy all your functions using the CLI provided by Webtask. You can then navigate the back-end using the HTTP protocol. Update: The Webtask website has since been shut down.
Serverless Examples
We talked about the Serverless Framework earlier in the post, and basically, this is a follow-up resource that showcases the many different use cases for the Serverless Framework. Despite these examples being locked out to one specific framework, you can still enjoy the process of learning about new serverless concepts. The examples are available for platforms like AWS, Azure, Kubeless, Google Cloud, and OpenWhisk. Further, there’s support for six different languages: nodeJS, Python, Go, Java, PHP, and Swift. Check out some of these favorites like Twitter Joke Bot and OAuth Dropbox API. If you are looking for hands-on learning, then check out this online course.
