Top 9 Serverless Function (FaaS) Providers

Startups choose serverless or FaaS because it’s affordable, it’s easy to set up, and it scales. Yet, unfortunately, choosing the wrong serverless provider can be expensive and nerve-wracking. For example, a company slashed its AWS bill from around $2,200 to $773 per month by switching from AWS Fargate — AWS’s serverless solution — to a FaaS module.

Serverless solutions like Fargate work well for complex applications that require long-running processes, but for short-lived functions or simpler applications, FaaS platforms can be more convenient, and can be even more affordable than the almost $800/month platform we referred to.

This article focuses on the top FaaS providers, many of which also offer serverless platforms. Plenty of providers highlight the same benefits — scalability and pay-per-use — but some functions alternatives are considerably more affordable, easier to use, and with better cold start times. You’ll find serverless computing providers who fit your business and technology needs, whether you’re a solopreneur, a small DevOps team, or a big company.

What is a FaaS provider?

A FaaS provider is a vendor offering a Function-as-a-Service computing service that allows developers to run individual functions — units of code that perform specific tasks — without managing servers or infrastructure.

FaaS belongs to the serverless model of cloud computing. On FaaS, the provider handles resource allocation and scaling automatically based on demand. This model is ideal for applications with unpredictable workloads or in early development stages, as it supports scalable and affordable solutions for event-driven tasks and microservices architectures. It’s also an excellent alternative to the usual monolithic app model. With the right FaaS providers, developers can add features to a full-stack webapp without compromising the main codebase.

The best FaaS providers for developers and companies

Discover the top 9 serverless function (FaaS) providers available today. Each platform offers specific features and integrations, designed for full-stack developers and MVPs alike:

Genezio

Genezio Functions is a Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) solution that streamlines the deployment and management of full-stack applications. As a FaaS platform, Genezio eliminates the need for developers to manage servers, and allows them to focus instead on writing and deploying code. This makes it a reliable choice for small projects, MVPs, and enterprise demos. Genezio’s type safe backend delivers a simple and secure application development experience, while automatic SDK generation gives developers a simple frontend-backend integration.

The platform’s Genezio.Cloud module automates the development, testing, and deployment of serverless functions, and provides up to four times faster cold start times than AWS Lambda, with a median cold start response time of around 54ms.

Genezio is framework-agnostic, which means it supports popular stacks like React, Vue, Angular, and Svelte. It integrates easily with tools like Upstash Redis and Neon Postgres , and offers in this way flexible database management. The platform stands out for having typesafe environment. Type safety means that the compiler will verify types during compilation and report an error if an incorrect type is assigned to a variable. It also gets mentioned for its ease of use and great cold start times.

Which FaaS providers are the quickest to set up?

Genezio is also remarkably easy to use—and quick to get started with. Developers can deploy a “Hello World” function in under two minutes after signing up, and then edit it directly in the browser. Some developers have already deployed a slightly more complex full-stack webapp in three minutes .

Genezio features AWS Lambda compatibility. This means that developers can migrate functions to Genezio without any code changes—and with considerably better cold-start times and more predicable costs.

Below, you can see two ways to get started: importing a project directly from GitHub or starting with a “Hello World” function template:

AWS

AWS offers serverless with Fargate and functions with AWS Lambda , a FaaS platform designed for event-driven applications. It integrates well with other AWS services, so it is a safe choice for developers already using AWS. Lambda supports several languages, including Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, and .NET Core. It also allows for custom runtimes and arbitrary executables.

As a FaaS offering, pricing is based on usage, with charges for the number of requests and the duration of function executions. Developers can choose provisioned concurrency to reduce cold start delays, or use Lambda@Edge for edge deployments. Lambda integrates with Amazon’s RDS Proxy and Elastic File System to connect to databases and manage file storage.

Lambda can automatically adjust to different tasks. It takes care of server and OS maintenance, and facilitates function management and troubleshooting.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform offers functions with the aptly-named Google Cloud Functions , a commonly used serverless FaaS platform designed for running code in response to events without server management.

This is an affordable FaaS solution and pricing, like most FaaS offerings, is pay-per-use: the first two million requests are free, and additional requests are priced at $0.40 per million. This is identical to what other big providers charge, but users report other costs — e.g. in computing power — stack up so quickly that it’s sometimes more convenient to recur to a niche player or to use an architecture other than functions-based. The platform’s 2nd gen release integrates easily with 18 Google Cloud services like Cloud Pub/Sub and Firebase , as well as third-party services.

Azure

Microsoft and Azure join into the functions’ competition with Microsoft Azure Functions . It’s one of the biggest FaaS suppliers for developing and deploying event-driven applications. Part of the Azure ecosystem, it supports multiple languages, including C#, JavaScript, F#, Python, Java, PowerShell, and TypeScript.

Azure Functions offers a more advanced programming model based on triggers and bindings. For instance, an HTTP-triggered function can read a document from Azure Cosmos DB and send a queue message, all configured declaratively. The platform supports various triggers, including web APIs, scheduled tasks, and services like Azure Storage , Azure Event Hubs , Twilio for SMS, and SendGrid for email. Azure Functions includes HTTP endpoint integration at no extra cost.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare, known for the “Checking your browser” loading screen , is also a functions’ provider thanks to their offering Cloudflare Workers . It’s a serverless platform which takes advantage of edge computing. The platform has features like Workers KV for key-value storage and Durable Objects for keeping track of requests. The pricing model is simple: the free plan covers 100,000 requests per day and starts at $5 per month.

Twilio

Twilio, the company best known for their messaging APIs, has Twilio Functions , a FaaS solution within its serverless environment. This service is especially interesting for apps that focus on communications and integrate with Twilio’s API. The platform supports JavaScript and runs on a familiar Node.js runtime setup. Developers can use Twilio Functions to manage tasks like processing voice calls, handling SMS responses, or giving access codes to mobile SDKs .

Twilio Functions operates on a pay-per-use model, where you are charged based on the number of requests and execution time, with automatic scaling to meet application demands. Built-in security makes sure that only Twilio requests can execute the code, and users have easy access to pre-defined templates for common use cases.

Iron.io

Iron.io’s IronFunctions is an easy-to-use FaaS platform designed to simplify serverless application deployment and management. As an open-source platform, it lets developers run functions in a serverless environment without the need for extensive infrastructure. This setup allows you to deploy your code directly to IronFunctions, where it handles server-side tasks, so you do not have to manage servers or cloud resources.

The platform supports different programming languages and is compatible with the AWS Lambda format. This compatibility makes it easy to import and run existing Lambda functions.

IronFunctions performs well with existing tools and services, including Kubernetes and Docker Swarm . IronFunctions also includes caching services through IronCache .

Netlify

Netlify Functions is a serverless FaaS provider built on AWS Lambda. Functions can be written in JavaScript, TypeScript, or Go and are well-suited for tasks such as API design, form submissions, and real-time data processing.

Netlify Functions support various types: Background Functions, Trigger Functions, and Scheduled Functions. Background Functions handle tasks that can take up to 15 minutes, and are ideal for batch processing and web scraping. Trigger Functions respond to specific events like webhooks or form submissions, and Scheduled Functions run on a regular schedule, similar to cron jobs , for periodic tasks.

Vercel

Vercel Functions provides a FaaS platform designed for static frontends and serverless functions. It hosts websites and web applications that deploy quickly and scale automatically.

The platform stands out for its simplicity and user-friendly design. When running Node.js, Vercel uses a single JSON to manage dependencies. Developers can also customise runtime versions, memory, and execution settings. The Vercel dashboard includes monitoring logs for tracking functions and requests.

Vercel Functions come in two types: Serverless Functions and Edge Functions . Serverless Functions run on AWS Lambda and support languages such as Node.js, Go, Python, and Ruby. Edge Functions use Vercel’s V8 runtime for faster performance at the network edge. Pricing includes a free Hobby plan for non-commercial use, a Pro plan at $20 per month, and custom pricing for Enterprise.

Explore serverless FaaS for faster app deployment with Genezio

Serverless and FaaS providers have similar strengths — pay-per-use, scalability — but not every provider can support both a solopreneur’s project and a big company’s IT systems. Out of the lot, Genezio stands out as a specialised FaaS provider that helps businesses and developers of any size or weight go serverless without incurring in extra costs or without getting inconvenient downtime.

With Genezio’s predictable, affordable, true pay-as-you-go model, and typesafe methods, developers can focus on creative problem-solving without worrying about infrastructure or how the servers scale. It’s the most flexible serverless provider.

Learn more about serverless deployment and FaaS solutions at Genezio .