{"slug": "aws-lambda", "name": "AWS Lambda", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Amazon's serverless compute service that runs code in response to events without managing servers.", "recommenders": 8, "commenters": 12, "warners": 2, "score": 6.294, "rising": 4.02, "first": "2025-12-04", "latest": "2026-10-14", "why": "Liked for running whole web apps as single functions behind adapters, instant scaling for bursty or large workloads, and very low cost at modest traffic.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 5], "listed": true, "loved": ["Monolith web apps", "Container deploys"], "caveat": "Architecture complexity", "short_quote": "we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["AWS Lambda"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for running whole web apps as single functions behind adapters,", "cites": [{"id": 801345265, "item_id": 50084079, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084079", "by": "tiew9Vii", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\".", "excerpt": "> Are we pretending now it's less complicated to distribute an app a cross a variety of lambda functions? I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\". My Lambda's are monolith webapps using Axum Rust framework. Using cargo lambda I generate a static binary, upload to s3 and point the lambda at it. Sometimes I'll package as a docker image so can run in Lambda or locally by passi", "context": "", "use_case": "compute for web apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801234593, "item_id": 50077162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "by": "nemothekid", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at almost 15 million requests per month the cost is under $10/mo", "excerpt": "Rust + Axum has sort of supported this with a middleware (https://github.com/lazear/axum-aws-lambda). Essentially you write your API as normal, and then when you build for lambda you enable a feature that does the special handler for you. This + Function URL + Cloudfront, and you end up with an API entirely hosted in lambda. I have a backend that does is hosted like this that does pretty complex work (image/video upl", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "use_case": "hosting API backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801137313, "item_id": 50071082, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071082", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter", "excerpt": "I guess the event translation step is not needed but I don't see what this gives you over what many of us do today: shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter. It annoys me that when I started with Lambda (2019-ish?) it (at least seemed to) advised against this. I went down the \"one function per route/method\" path but always disliked it and it added a decent amount of complexity for packaging/dep", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting web backends", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"text": " instant scaling for bursty or large workloads,", "cites": [{"id": 801140448, "item_id": 50071278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "by": "ryandvm", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you cannot beat the instant scale of Lambdas.", "excerpt": "They're also good for extremely bursty loads. I use Lambdas extensively for a radar imagery API that delivers the images for an Android live wallpaper that shows weather radar. That particular use case can go from hardly any traffic at all to a hurricane of traffic during something like, well, a hurricane. For consistent processing loads, I think I could save money by just running on dedicated EC2 instances, but you ", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "use_case": "bursty radar imagery API", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801167504, "item_id": 50072969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072969", "by": "holler", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully", "excerpt": "Strong disagree, we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully while being mostly hands-free and easy to maintain with a small team.", "context": "small team", "use_case": "large-scale data processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"text": " and very low cost at modest traffic.", "cites": [{"id": 801234593, "item_id": 50077162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "by": "nemothekid", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at almost 15 million requests per month the cost is under $10/mo", "excerpt": "Rust + Axum has sort of supported this with a middleware (https://github.com/lazear/axum-aws-lambda). Essentially you write your API as normal, and then when you build for lambda you enable a feature that does the special handler for you. This + Function URL + Cloudfront, and you end up with an API entirely hosted in lambda. I have a backend that does is hosted like this that does pretty complex work (image/video upl", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "use_case": "hosting API backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801229552, "item_id": 50076847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50076847", "by": "remify", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is.", "excerpt": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is. It cost literally 0$ (the lambda part). The frontend is hosted on cloudfront, the backend is a lambda and you basically just pay for the database and certificate. I don't want to manage a server or even a docker image. I just want my code to exist there so I like the idea", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"text": " The main caveats are added complexity when an app is split into many functions,", "cites": [{"id": 739767617, "item_id": 46235476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235476", "by": "ianberdin", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal.", "excerpt": "I still don\u2019t get, what is the use case for cloudflare workers or lambda? I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal. Alright, they give lower latency, and maybe cheaper and big nightmare for managing at the same time. Hello to micro services architecture.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow"}, {"id": 801137313, "item_id": 50071082, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071082", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter", "excerpt": "I guess the event translation step is not needed but I don't see what this gives you over what many of us do today: shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter. It annoys me that when I started with Lambda (2019-ish?) it (at least seemed to) advised against this. I went down the \"one function per route/method\" path but always disliked it and it added a decent amount of complexity for packaging/dep", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting web backends", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"text": " plus surprise charges and higher costs than dedicated servers for steady loads.", "cites": [{"id": 781223153, "item_id": 48826447, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48826447", "by": "subscribed", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added", "excerpt": "I used CF Wrkers because I wanted to try serverless(1) - I just needed a tiny https proxy for one of my personal scripts and.... It turned out to be super fun. And no surprise bills. (1) after my earlier experience with AWS lambda - almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added (and it took me almost 2 hours to find all the rhizomes that were prou", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless", "switched_from": "", "story": "We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code"}, {"id": 801140448, "item_id": 50071278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "by": "ryandvm", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you cannot beat the instant scale of Lambdas.", "excerpt": "They're also good for extremely bursty loads. I use Lambdas extensively for a radar imagery API that delivers the images for an Android live wallpaper that shows weather radar. That particular use case can go from hardly any traffic at all to a hurricane of traffic during something like, well, a hurricane. For consistent processing loads, I think I could save money by just running on dedicated EC2 instances, but you ", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "use_case": "bursty radar imagery API", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 739767617, "item_id": 46235476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235476", "by": "ianberdin", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal.", "excerpt": "I still don\u2019t get, what is the use case for cloudflare workers or lambda? I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal. Alright, they give lower latency, and maybe cheaper and big nightmare for managing at the same time. Hello to micro services architecture.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Monolith web apps", "summary": "Commenters run whole web apps in one function via Axum, Fastify, Hono or Express adapters.", "quotes": [{"id": 801345265, "item_id": 50084079, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084079", "by": "tiew9Vii", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\".", "excerpt": "> Are we pretending now it's less complicated to distribute an app a cross a variety of lambda functions? I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\". My Lambda's are monolith webapps using Axum Rust framework. Using cargo lambda I generate a static binary, upload to s3 and point the lambda at it. Sometimes I'll package as a docker image so can run in Lambda or locally by passi", "context": "", "use_case": "compute for web apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801234593, "item_id": 50077162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "by": "nemothekid", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at almost 15 million requests per month the cost is under $10/mo", "excerpt": "Rust + Axum has sort of supported this with a middleware (https://github.com/lazear/axum-aws-lambda). Essentially you write your API as normal, and then when you build for lambda you enable a feature that does the special handler for you. This + Function URL + Cloudfront, and you end up with an API entirely hosted in lambda. I have a backend that does is hosted like this that does pretty complex work (image/video upl", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "use_case": "hosting API backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801137313, "item_id": 50071082, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071082", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter", "excerpt": "I guess the event translation step is not needed but I don't see what this gives you over what many of us do today: shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter. It annoys me that when I started with Lambda (2019-ish?) it (at least seemed to) advised against this. I went down the \"one function per route/method\" path but always disliked it and it added a decent amount of complexity for packaging/dep", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting web backends", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"label": "Container deploys", "summary": "Docker images deploy smoothly and can be tested locally first.", "quotes": [{"id": 745097009, "item_id": 46568563, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568563", "by": "nacozarina", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve always deployed node.js docker images for aws lambda and had pleasant experience", "excerpt": "for external cloud I\u2019ve always deployed node.js docker images for aws lambda and had pleasant experience testing your app as-a-container locally before pushing is a worthwhile check to ensure you don\u2019t have config/startup issues learning docker is a separate skill, yet is versatile, you can wrap anything in an OCI image", "context": "", "use_case": "deploying node.js container images", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Should I learn Docker to deploy my app in VPS?"}, {"id": 801345265, "item_id": 50084079, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084079", "by": "tiew9Vii", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\".", "excerpt": "> Are we pretending now it's less complicated to distribute an app a cross a variety of lambda functions? I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\". My Lambda's are monolith webapps using Axum Rust framework. Using cargo lambda I generate a static binary, upload to s3 and point the lambda at it. Sometimes I'll package as a docker image so can run in Lambda or locally by passi", "context": "", "use_case": "compute for web apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 738353297, "item_id": 46147081, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46147081", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I know just enough about Kubernetes to not sound like an idiot when I\u2019m in the room and mostly I deploy Docker containers to various managed services on AWS - Lambda, ECS, etc. But, as a lead for implementations, I just couldn\u2019t in good conscience permit something that is not an industry standard and not supported by my cloud provider. First from a self interested standpoint, it looks a lot better on their resume to ", "context": "lead for implementations", "use_case": "deploying containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Uncloud - Tool for deploying containerised apps across servers without k8s"}]}, {"label": "Instant scaling", "summary": "It handles sudden traffic spikes and very large processing volumes well.", "quotes": [{"id": 801140448, "item_id": 50071278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "by": "ryandvm", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you cannot beat the instant scale of Lambdas.", "excerpt": "They're also good for extremely bursty loads. I use Lambdas extensively for a radar imagery API that delivers the images for an Android live wallpaper that shows weather radar. That particular use case can go from hardly any traffic at all to a hurricane of traffic during something like, well, a hurricane. For consistent processing loads, I think I could save money by just running on dedicated EC2 instances, but you ", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "use_case": "bursty radar imagery API", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801167504, "item_id": 50072969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072969", "by": "holler", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully", "excerpt": "Strong disagree, we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully while being mostly hands-free and easy to maintain with a small team.", "context": "small team", "use_case": "large-scale data processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"label": "Low cost", "summary": "Users report near-zero bills, including under $10/mo at about 15M requests.", "quotes": [{"id": 801234593, "item_id": 50077162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "by": "nemothekid", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at almost 15 million requests per month the cost is under $10/mo", "excerpt": "Rust + Axum has sort of supported this with a middleware (https://github.com/lazear/axum-aws-lambda). Essentially you write your API as normal, and then when you build for lambda you enable a feature that does the special handler for you. This + Function URL + Cloudfront, and you end up with an API entirely hosted in lambda. I have a backend that does is hosted like this that does pretty complex work (image/video upl", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "use_case": "hosting API backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801229552, "item_id": 50076847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50076847", "by": "remify", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is.", "excerpt": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is. It cost literally 0$ (the lambda part). The frontend is hosted on cloudfront, the backend is a lambda and you basically just pay for the database and certificate. I don't want to manage a server or even a docker image. I just want my code to exist there so I like the idea", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"label": "Low maintenance", "summary": "No servers to manage, and it is easy for a small team to maintain.", "quotes": [{"id": 801229552, "item_id": 50076847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50076847", "by": "remify", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is.", "excerpt": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is. It cost literally 0$ (the lambda part). The frontend is hosted on cloudfront, the backend is a lambda and you basically just pay for the database and certificate. I don't want to manage a server or even a docker image. I just want my code to exist there so I like the idea", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801167504, "item_id": 50072969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072969", "by": "holler", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully", "excerpt": "Strong disagree, we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully while being mostly hands-free and easy to maintain with a small team.", "context": "small team", "use_case": "large-scale data processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}]}, {"label": "Event automation", "summary": "Webhooks can trigger functions for tasks like rebuilding a static site.", "quotes": [{"id": 743809633, "item_id": 46488102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488102", "by": "ldoughty", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "trigger an AWS Lambda which, on merge to main, automatically pulled in the repo", "excerpt": "I had a similar push years ago, but I did take this approach once step further. For a similar reason Jeff mentions -- lower maintenance over time. I was frustrated that (because my posts are less frequent) changes in Hugo and my local machine could lead to changes in what is generated. So I attached a web hook from my websites GitHub repo to trigger an AWS Lambda which, on merge to main, automatically pulled in the r", "context": "personal site owner", "use_case": "automated static site builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Architecture complexity", "summary": "One function per route and microservice sprawl make packaging and management harder.", "quotes": [{"id": 801137313, "item_id": 50071082, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071082", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter", "excerpt": "I guess the event translation step is not needed but I don't see what this gives you over what many of us do today: shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter. It annoys me that when I started with Lambda (2019-ish?) it (at least seemed to) advised against this. I went down the \"one function per route/method\" path but always disliked it and it added a decent amount of complexity for packaging/dep", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting web backends", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 739767617, "item_id": 46235476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235476", "by": "ianberdin", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal.", "excerpt": "I still don\u2019t get, what is the use case for cloudflare workers or lambda? I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal. Alright, they give lower latency, and maybe cheaper and big nightmare for managing at the same time. Hello to micro services architecture.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow"}]}, {"label": "Surprise charges", "summary": "One user was billed for an automatically added add-on while on the free tier with almost no traffic.", "quotes": [{"id": 781223153, "item_id": 48826447, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48826447", "by": "subscribed", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added", "excerpt": "I used CF Wrkers because I wanted to try serverless(1) - I just needed a tiny https proxy for one of my personal scripts and.... It turned out to be super fun. And no surprise bills. (1) after my earlier experience with AWS lambda - almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added (and it took me almost 2 hours to find all the rhizomes that were prou", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless", "switched_from": "", "story": "We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code"}]}, {"label": "Steady-load cost", "summary": "For consistent loads, dedicated EC2 instances or a VPS can be cheaper or simpler.", "quotes": [{"id": 801140448, "item_id": 50071278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "by": "ryandvm", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you cannot beat the instant scale of Lambdas.", "excerpt": "They're also good for extremely bursty loads. I use Lambdas extensively for a radar imagery API that delivers the images for an Android live wallpaper that shows weather radar. That particular use case can go from hardly any traffic at all to a hurricane of traffic during something like, well, a hurricane. For consistent processing loads, I think I could save money by just running on dedicated EC2 instances, but you ", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "use_case": "bursty radar imagery API", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 739767617, "item_id": 46235476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235476", "by": "ianberdin", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal.", "excerpt": "I still don\u2019t get, what is the use case for cloudflare workers or lambda? I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal. Alright, they give lower latency, and maybe cheaper and big nightmare for managing at the same time. Hello to micro services architecture.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow"}]}], "who": [{"by": "nemothekid", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "date": "2026-10-13"}, {"by": "holler", "context": "small team", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072969", "date": "2026-10-13"}, {"by": "ryandvm", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "date": "2026-10-13"}, {"by": "ldoughty", "context": "personal site owner", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488102", "date": "2026-01-04"}, {"by": "raw_anon_1111", "context": "lead for implementations", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46147081", "date": "2025-12-04"}], "tags": ["for bursty workloads", "for small teams", "for Rust web apps", "for side projects", "for Docker deploys"], "use_cases": ["compute for web apps", "hosting api backend", "serverless backend", "large-scale data processing", "bursty radar imagery api", "hosting web backends"], "compared": [{"slug": "cloudflare-workers", "name": "Cloudflare Workers", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "kubernetes", "name": "Kubernetes", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "axum", "name": "Axum", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50069318", "title": "AWS Lambda Web Functions", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48823359", "title": "We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48073201", "title": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568318", "title": "Ask HN: Should I learn Docker to deploy my app in VPS?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46487498", "title": "Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192748", "title": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 5}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801345265, "item_id": 50084079, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084079", "by": "tiew9Vii", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\".", "excerpt": "> Are we pretending now it's less complicated to distribute an app a cross a variety of lambda functions? I treat Lambda purely as compute and ignore everything else related to \"serverless\". My Lambda's are monolith webapps using Axum Rust framework. Using cargo lambda I generate a static binary, upload to s3 and point the lambda at it. Sometimes I'll package as a docker image so can run in Lambda or locally by passi", "context": "", "use_case": "compute for web apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801234593, "item_id": 50077162, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077162", "by": "nemothekid", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at almost 15 million requests per month the cost is under $10/mo", "excerpt": "Rust + Axum has sort of supported this with a middleware (https://github.com/lazear/axum-aws-lambda). Essentially you write your API as normal, and then when you build for lambda you enable a feature that does the special handler for you. This + Function URL + Cloudfront, and you end up with an API entirely hosted in lambda. I have a backend that does is hosted like this that does pretty complex work (image/video upl", "context": "runs a backend at ~15M requests per month", "use_case": "hosting API backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801229552, "item_id": 50076847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50076847", "by": "remify", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is.", "excerpt": "I've built 2 applications using Lambdas as a backend and I love how simple and it is. It cost literally 0$ (the lambda part). The frontend is hosted on cloudfront, the backend is a lambda and you basically just pay for the database and certificate. I don't want to manage a server or even a docker image. I just want my code to exist there so I like the idea", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801167504, "item_id": 50072969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072969", "by": "holler", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully", "excerpt": "Strong disagree, we use lambda/sfn/other services to process hundreds of millions of pages of data annually and it scales beautifully while being mostly hands-free and easy to maintain with a small team.", "context": "small team", "use_case": "large-scale data processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801140448, "item_id": 50071278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071278", "by": "ryandvm", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you cannot beat the instant scale of Lambdas.", "excerpt": "They're also good for extremely bursty loads. I use Lambdas extensively for a radar imagery API that delivers the images for an Android live wallpaper that shows weather radar. That particular use case can go from hardly any traffic at all to a hurricane of traffic during something like, well, a hurricane. For consistent processing loads, I think I could save money by just running on dedicated EC2 instances, but you ", "context": "built an Android weather radar wallpaper", "use_case": "bursty radar imagery API", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 801137313, "item_id": 50071082, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50071082", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter", "excerpt": "I guess the event translation step is not needed but I don't see what this gives you over what many of us do today: shove Hono/Express/Fastify into a lambda with some shim/adapter. It annoys me that when I started with Lambda (2019-ish?) it (at least seemed to) advised against this. I went down the \"one function per route/method\" path but always disliked it and it added a decent amount of complexity for packaging/dep", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting web backends", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 781223153, "item_id": 48826447, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48826447", "by": "subscribed", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added", "excerpt": "I used CF Wrkers because I wanted to try serverless(1) - I just needed a tiny https proxy for one of my personal scripts and.... It turned out to be super fun. And no surprise bills. (1) after my earlier experience with AWS lambda - almost no traffic (few requests per day), on free trier and YET I had to pay for the add-on they automatically added (and it took me almost 2 hours to find all the rhizomes that were prou", "context": "", "use_case": "serverless", "switched_from": "", "story": "We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code"}, {"id": 769513936, "item_id": 48094621, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094621", "by": "etothet", "date": "2026-05-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there definitely is a sweet spot where it can work well", "excerpt": "There are many reasons to dislike AWS and many reasons to stay away from it (and the criticisms in the article about support resonate with me), but a few things in the article stood out to me as a bit misleading: First, the comparison of running an Anthropic model in Bedrock vs. Claude Code is not apples-to-apples. With Bedrock pay API pricing (or whatever negotiated pricing AWS and the vendor agreed to), just like t", "context": "", "use_case": "discrete functions, light workloads", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 745097009, "item_id": 46568563, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46568563", "by": "nacozarina", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve always deployed node.js docker images for aws lambda and had pleasant experience", "excerpt": "for external cloud I\u2019ve always deployed node.js docker images for aws lambda and had pleasant experience testing your app as-a-container locally before pushing is a worthwhile check to ensure you don\u2019t have config/startup issues learning docker is a separate skill, yet is versatile, you can wrap anything in an OCI image", "context": "", "use_case": "deploying node.js container images", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Should I learn Docker to deploy my app in VPS?"}, {"id": 743809633, "item_id": 46488102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488102", "by": "ldoughty", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "trigger an AWS Lambda which, on merge to main, automatically pulled in the repo", "excerpt": "I had a similar push years ago, but I did take this approach once step further. For a similar reason Jeff mentions -- lower maintenance over time. I was frustrated that (because my posts are less frequent) changes in Hugo and my local machine could lead to changes in what is generated. So I attached a web hook from my websites GitHub repo to trigger an AWS Lambda which, on merge to main, automatically pulled in the r", "context": "personal site owner", "use_case": "automated static site builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo"}, {"id": 739767617, "item_id": 46235476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46235476", "by": "ianberdin", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal.", "excerpt": "I still don\u2019t get, what is the use case for cloudflare workers or lambda? I used both for years. Nothing beats VPS/bare metal. Alright, they give lower latency, and maybe cheaper and big nightmare for managing at the same time. Hello to micro services architecture.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow"}, {"id": 738353297, "item_id": 46147081, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46147081", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I know just enough about Kubernetes to not sound like an idiot when I\u2019m in the room and mostly I deploy Docker containers to various managed services on AWS - Lambda, ECS, etc. But, as a lead for implementations, I just couldn\u2019t in good conscience permit something that is not an industry standard and not supported by my cloud provider. First from a self interested standpoint, it looks a lot better on their resume to ", "context": "lead for implementations", "use_case": "deploying containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Uncloud - Tool for deploying containerised apps across servers without k8s"}]}