Serverless And Function As A Service — professional stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
FaaS Platform / Compute Runtime
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsLambda Free: 1M req + 400k GB-sec/mo forever, $0.20/1M req + $0.0000166667/GB-sec after, Prov Conc $0.0000041667/GB-sec. CF Workers Free 100k req/day, Paid $5/mo includes 10M req + $0.50/M after, $0.02/GB-sec wall-clock. Vercel Free 100GB-hrs/mo, Pro $20/mo + $40/100GB-hrs overage, 1000GB-hrs $0.18/GB-hr. Netlify Free 125k req/mo + 100hrs runtime, Pro $19/mo 2M req.
Event Source / Queue
Runs slow work (emails, exports, payouts) in the background so users don’t wait. Keeps your app snappy.Pricing & free-tier limitsSQS Free 1M req/mo forever, $0.40/M req Standard after ($0.50/M FIFO), first 1GB transfer free $0.09/GB after. CF Queues Free 1M ops/mo, $5/mo includes 10M ops $0.40/M after. QStash Free 500 msgs/day, $10/mo 75k msgs $0.50/M over. Upstash Queue Free 10k msg/day.
Event Bus / Orchestration
Lets external services notify you of events in real time. Core to integrating payments, KYC, and third-party workflows.Pricing & free-tier limitsEventBridge Free 100k custom events/mo same bus (14M Scheduler free 12mo), $1.00/M events custom after, $0.10/M AWS events, Archive Replay $0.10/100k events, Schema $0.10/M discovered. Inngest Free 100k step runs/mo, $20/mo 500k $0.30/1k over. Cloudflare Event Notifications $5/mo 1M events.
API Gateway for FaaS
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsAPI GW REST $3.50/M req + $0.09/GB data out, first 1M free 12mo, WebSocket $1.00/M + $0.25/M connection-min. HTTP API $1.00/M req + $0.09/GB out, Free 1M 12mo. Cloudflare API Gateway Free with Workers, Enterprise $20/mo 1M calls incl + $1/M over, rate limiting included. Kong OSS free self-host, Konnect $250/mo.
Object Storage for FaaS Artifacts & State
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB, $0.0225 next 450TB, PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k, Free 5GB 12mo. R2 Free 10GB storage + 10M Class A + 10M Class B ops/mo forever, $0.015/GB-mo + $4.50/M Class A + $0.36/M Class B after, egress free. B2 $0.006/GB-mo storage $0.005/1k download, free egress via CF.
Secrets Management for FaaS
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS Secrets $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls, rotation Lambda free, 30-day trial. Doppler Free 5 users, 100 secrets, 100 config syncs, Starter $8/user/mo unlimited secrets $0.50/secret over 1000. Infisical Free 3 env, $20/mo Starter $0.20/secret over. Vault HCP $0.095/hr dev cluster ~$69/mo + Standard $0.30/hr ~$219/mo.
Log Management & Aggregation for FaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudWatch $0.50/GB ingested (first 5GB free forever), $0.03/GB-mo archive, Insights $0.005/GB scanned, 3-day free Live Tail. Better Stack Free 1GB/mo 3-day retain, $24/mo 10GB 7-day, $0.45/GB over. Axiom Free 500MB/day 30-day, $25/mo 10GB. Datadog $0.10/GB ingested + $1.70/M indexed events + $0.10/GB 15mo rehydrate.
Monitoring & Distributed Tracing for FaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsX-Ray Free 100k traces/mo recorded + 1M retrieved/mo forever, $5/M traces recorded after + $0.50/M scanned. Lambda Insights $0.02/GB-hr. Grafana Cloud Free 10k metrics series, 50GB logs, 50GB traces, $8/user/mo Pro. Datadog APM $31/host/mo $0.10/GB ingest, Infra $15/host/mo, Serverless $1.70/M invocations enhanced metrics.
Error Tracking for Functions
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Free 5k errors/mo, 10k transactions, 50 replays, 1 user. Team $26/mo includes 50k errors $0.00026/error over, 100k transactions. Business $80/mo 100k errors. GlitchTip OSS free self-host or Cloud $12/mo 10k events. Highlight Free 500 errors/mo, $50/mo 10k $0.02/error over.
CI/CD for Function Deployment
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free 2000 min Linux + 500MB packages + Actions Cache, Pro $4/mo 3000 min $0.008/min after, $0.25/GB storage over. GitLab Free 400 min/mo $0.008/min over shared. AWS CodeBuild $0.005/min Linux 2vCPU, $0.30/GB cache, CodePipeline $1/active pipeline/mo free 1. Depot $50/mo 2x faster.
Infrastructure as Code for FaaS
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTerraform CLI OSS free, Terraform Cloud Free 500 resources, Team $20/user/mo + $0.00014/RUM, Plus $35/user. Pulumi OSS free, Team $75/mo 3 members + $10/user over + $0.50/100 credits, Enterprise custom. SAM/CDK free - pay deployed resources only.
Container Registry for Functions
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsECR $0.10/GB-mo storage, Free 500MB-mo storage 12mo, data transfer $0.09/GB out first 1GB free, scanning $0.01/image basic. GHCR Free 500MB storage + 1GB transfer, Pro $4/mo 2GB + 10GB transfer + $0.25/GB storage over. Docker Hub Free 1 private repo, Pro $5/mo unlimited private + 5k pulls/day.
Edge / CDN for Function Responses
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free unmetered CDN, Workers cache $0.50/M cache ops, Pro $20/mo. CloudFront Free 1TB transfer + 10M req 12mo, $0.085/GB first 10TB NA/EU after, $0.0075/10k HTTPS req, $0.02/M Function invocations. Fastly $50/mo min + $0.12/GB NA, Bunny $1/mo min + $0.01/GB.
DNS & Domain Management for APIs
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare DNS Free unlimited queries + free DNSSEC. Route 53 $0.50/zone/mo + $0.40/M standard queries, $0.60/M Geo/ Latency + $0.70/M Resolver. NS1 Free 500k queries + $50/mo 1M $0.50/M over. Cloudflare DNS Enterprise $200/mo custom SLA.
Managed Database for Function State (Serverless DB)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsDynamoDB Free 25GB storage + 25 RCU/WCU forever, On-Demand $1.25/M writes $0.25/M reads, storage $0.25/GB-mo, PITR $0.20/GB-mo, Global $1.875/M replicated writes. D1 Free 5GB + 5M rows read/day, $5/mo 100M rows read $0.75/M after, storage $0.75/GB-mo. Turso Free 9GB storage + 500M rows, $29/mo 24GB. PlanetScale Free 5GB + 1B row reads.
Caching Layer for Functions (KV / Redis)
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Redis Free 10k cmds/day 256MB, $0.20/100k cmds + $0.25/GB-mo storage after, Pay $10/mo credits. Workers KV Free 100k reads/day 1GB + 1k writes/day, $5/mo 10M reads + 1M writes + $0.50/M reads over. Momento Free 50GB transfer/mo, $0.50/GB after + $0.70/M req. ElastiCache Serverless $0.125/GB-hr + $0.125/M ECPU, min 1GB.
Message Streaming / Event Streaming Platform
Lets external services notify you of events in real time. Core to integrating payments, KYC, and third-party workflows.Pricing & free-tier limitsMSK Serverless $0.27/GB ingress & egress + $0.10/GB-mo storage, min 5MB/s. Confluent Standard $0.40/GB ingress + $0.11/GB-mo storage + $0.10/hr CKU, Free $400 trial + 10GB ingress permanent. Redpanda Serverless Free 1k partitions, $1.50/hr baseline. Upstash Kafka Free 10k msgs/day, $10/mo 100k msgs/day $0.30/100k over.
Scheduler / Cron Triggers for Functions
Runs slow work (emails, exports, payouts) in the background so users don’t wait. Keeps your app snappy.Pricing & free-tier limitsEventBridge Scheduler Free 14M invocations/mo 12mo, $1.00/M invocations after. Workers Cron Free unlimited with Workers Paid, invocation counts as Worker request $0.15/M on Unbound. Trigger.dev Free 5k tasks/mo + cron, $29/mo 25k tasks $0.50/1k over. Cronitor $29/mo 250 jobs $0.15/1k executions over with alerts.
Local Development & Testing Toolkit
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsLocalStack Community free (S3, Lambda, SQS, API GW mocked), Pro $35/dev/mo 10k API calls + advanced services (Step Functions, MSK), Team $99/dev/mo SSO. Wrangler/SAM/Miniflare free OSS. SST Cloud free solo, $20/mo team seats. Gitpod Free 50hrs/mo, $30/mo 100hrs.
Workflow Orchestration / Step Functions
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsStep Functions Free 4k transitions/mo forever, Standard $0.025/1k state transitions, Express $1.00/M req + $0.00001667/GB-sec + $0.00000463/ms? + logs $0.50/GB. Inngest Free 100k step runs/mo, $20/mo 500k + $0.30/1k over. Temporal Cloud Free 1k actions, $25/mo + $0.10/1k actions. Orkes $400/mo base.
Distributed Lock / Concurrency Control
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDynamoDB lock uses $1.25/M writes + $0.25/M reads, no extra license, OSS client free. Upstash Redis lock included in Redis cost $0.20/100k cmds. Redis Cloud Fixed $19/mo 1GB, Pro $5/mo per 100k ops + replication. Momento lock via cache free tier 50GB.
Service Mesh / Function Networking & Service Discovery
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsApp Mesh control plane free, $0.10/mesh/hr + $0.02/proxy/hr Envoy, Cloud Map $0.10/service/mo + $1.00/M queries + $0.10/health check. Consul OSS free, HCP $0.125/hr per cluster ~$91/mo + $0.10/10k requests. Linkerd OSS free, Buoyant Cloud $500/mo.
Rate Limiting & Throttling for Functions
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsAPI GW throttling included, burst 5k/s, WAF Rate Limit $5/rule/mo + $1/M req over 10k. Cloudflare Free 1 rule 10 sec/10k req, Pro $20/mo 10 rules + $0.05/10k good req, Enterprise unlimited. Upstash Rate Limit Free 10k req/day, $10/mo 500k $0.25/M after. Unkey Free 2.5k ratelimits/day.
Web Application Firewall for FaaS APIs
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare WAF Free 1 custom rule + free managed ruleset, Pro $20/mo 20 rules, Biz $200/mo Managed + DDoS. AWS WAF $5/rule/mo + $1/M req up to 10M $0.60/M 10-100M, Bot Control $10/mo + $1/M req target. Fastly Next-Gen WAF $800/mo.
Identity & Access Management for FaaS
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsCognito Free 10k MAU forever, $0.0055/MAU next 40k, $0.0046 50k-100k, $0.00325 over 100k, SAML IdP $0.015/MAU. Auth0 Free 7.5k MAU, Essentials $35/mo 500 MAU $0.07/MAU over 500. Clerk Free 10k MAU, $25/mo 10k + $0.02/MAU over. Supabase Auth Free 50k MAU.
Cost Monitoring & FinOps for FaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS Cost Explorer free, Anomaly free, Budgets $0.02/day per budget first 2 free. Infracost OSS free, Cloud $10/dev/mo 5k runs. Vantage Free up to $5k AWS cost tracked, Team $30/mo $25k tracked + $1 per $1k over, Scale custom. CloudZero $35k/year starter. Datadog Cost $3k/mo base + infra.
Backup & Artifact Versioning for FaaS
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Versioning $0.023/GB-mo per version same as storage, CRR $0.02/GB data + req costs, Object Lock no extra. AWS Backup Lambda $0.05/GB-mo warm, $0.01/GB-mo cold, Free 10GB backup. R2 $0.015/GB-mo storage per version no egress. B2 $0.006/GB-mo per version.
Feature Flag & Remote Config for Functions
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsAppConfig Free 1M hosted config retrievals + 1k feature flag data, 30k min, $0.0000002/retrieval $0.0008/GB after. LaunchDarkly Free 1k MAU 1k flags, Starter $10/mo 1k MAU $0.10/flag eval over, Pro $20/seat/mo + $12/seat over + $0.15/MAU over. Flagsmith Free 50k req/mo, $40/mo Startup 200k. Unleash OSS free, Cloud $80/mo 10k API.
Async Task Queue / Background Jobs for FaaS
Runs slow work (emails, exports, payouts) in the background so users don’t wait. Keeps your app snappy.Pricing & free-tier limitsSQS $0.40/M + Lambda poller $0.10/M polls (free to 1M polls), Trigger.dev Free 5k tasks/mo, Pro $29/mo 25k tasks + $0.50/1k over, Scale $500/mo 500k. Inngest Free 100k runs, Pro $20/mo 500k $0.30/1k over. QStash $10/mo 75k messages $0.50/M over.
Image Processing / Media Transform for FaaS
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCF Images Free 5k transforms/mo, $5/mo includes 100k transforms + 1k images stored $5/100k transforms over $1/1k images stored $5/100k stored image delivery. Imgix Free 1k origin images, $40/mo Starter 20k origin + $0.08/1k transforms over, $3/1k master. Cloudinary Free 25k transformations + 10GB storage + 25GB delivery, $89/mo Plus 60k transforms $0.09/1k over.
How this professional serverless and function as a service checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a professional serverless and function as a service build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.