A Comparison of AWS and Azure for Building Serverless Applications
Serverless architectures are becoming increasingly popular for building and deploying applications, as they allow you to scale your applications on demand and pay only for the resources you use. Two of the leading cloud providers for building serverless applications are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
In this article, we’ll take a detailed look at the differences between AWS and Azure for building serverless applications, including their pricing models, supported languages and frameworks, and available services.
Pricing Models
One of the key differences between AWS and Azure is their pricing models for serverless applications.
AWS charges for its serverless services on a pay-per-invocation basis. This means that you only pay for the number of times your functions are executed, and you don’t have to worry about paying for idle resources. AWS also offers a free tier for its serverless services, which allows you to get started with serverless application development at no cost.
Azure also charges for its serverless services on a pay-per-invocation basis, but it also includes a consumption plan that allows you to pay only for the resources you use. With the consumption plan, you don’t have to worry about configuring and managing resources, as Azure will automatically scale your applications as needed. Like AWS, Azure also offers a free tier for its serverless services.
Supported Languages and Frameworks
Both AWS and Azure support a wide range of languages and frameworks for building serverless applications.
AWS supports the following languages and frameworks for its serverless services as per this article's publication date:
- Node.js
- Java
- C#
- Go
- PowerShell
- Python
- Ruby
AWS offers the following services for building serverless applications amongst others:
- AWS Lambda
- AWS Amplify
- AWS Chalice
- AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
Azure supports the following languages and frameworks for its serverless services as per this article’s publication date:
- Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript)
- Java
- C#
- F#
- PowerShell
- Python
Azure offers the following services for building serverless applications amongst others:
- Azure Functions
- Azure Logic Apps
- Azure Event Grid
- Azure Durable Functions
Available Services
Both AWS and Azure offer a wide range of services that can be used to build serverless applications.
Some of the services available on AWS for building serverless applications include:
- AWS Lambda: A fully managed service for running your code in response to events, such as changes to data in an S3 bucket or a new line of a stream in Kinesis.
- AWS API Gateway: A fully managed service for creating, deploying, and managing APIs.
- AWS DynamoDB: A fully managed NoSQL database service that can be used to store data for serverless applications.
- AWS SNS: A fully managed messaging service that can be used to send notifications to a variety of endpoints.
Some of the services available on Azure for building serverless applications include:
- Azure Functions: A fully managed service for running your code in response to events, such as changes to data in a storage account or the completion of a task in Azure DevOps.
- Azure Logic Apps: A fully managed service for building automated workflows that integrate with other Azure services and external APIs.
- Azure Event Grid: A fully managed service for routing events from multiple sources to multiple destinations.
- Azure Cosmos DB: A fully managed NoSQL database service that can be used to store data for serverless applications.
Conclusion
Both platforms offer a wide range of languages and frameworks to choose from, as well as a variety of services that can be used to build serverless applications.
When deciding between AWS and Azure for building serverless applications, it’s important to consider your specific requirements, including your preferred language and framework, as well as your budget and the services you need. Both platforms offer a free tier that can be used to get started with serverless application development, so it’s worth trying out both to see which one works best for you.
