Serverless is an event-driven framework that I can confidently say is now my go-to for small projects. Paired with the one-click devops solutions that AWS provides, I can dedicate time to the project itself instead of trying to implement a fully-fledged production architecture right off the bat.

I started on a side project recently and chose Serverless to see what it was all about. Here are some a-ha! moments that made me happy with my decision:

Familiar build process with serverless-webpack ⚙️

• Node/React/TypeScript/Babel/other buzzwords

100% uptime ⏱

• No 'sleeping' like other free tiers *cough* Heroku *cough*

Instant local server with serverless-offline 🛠

• Emulates AWS λ and API Gateway with no config needed

Effortless deploys 🚀

• Deploy to CloudFront with sls deploy
  • Custom domains with serverless-domain-manager
• Deploy to S3 with serverless-finch

Easy domain/SSL 🔒

• Purchased domain on Route53, one-click DNS config
• Free Amazon-issued SSL cert, one click to use with CloudFront

And just to cover both sides, here are some gripes I had:

• Initial AWS credential setup was a hassle, but only need to do it once.
• I'm locked in for the time being. But obviously if I breach
  00k in AWS bills, I'll have the resources to build on Kubernetes.

And that's my case for Serverless in this context. For small projects, the trade-offs are self-evident. Stay tuned for more on how to start your own! ⚡️