74. Function URLs vs API Gateway

03/30/23 • 23 min

How can you use a Lambda to respond to an HTTP request? There are more ways than ever to do it. We have API Gateway REST APIs, Lambda support for Application Load Balancer, and now Function URLs. But which one should you use, and when? In this episode of AWS Bites podcast, we will give you a quick and simple guide to picking the best way to build APIs with Lambda. In this video, we're going to pitch Function URLs against API Gateway in a battle for the ages! Function URLs offer a simple and quick way to get a public URL to invoke a Lambda function, with fewer configuration options and cheaper pricing. They are suitable for private webhooks, simple backend functions, and machine learning inference backend. However, they lack authorization and DDoS protection, making them unsuitable for public webhooks. On the other hand, API Gateway offers more features and control, making it suitable for public APIs. API Gateway comes in two flavors: REST and HTTP with some subtle differences. Finally, we will also cover Application Load balancer and explore when and why it can be a convenient alternative to both Function URLs and API Gateway.

💰 SPONSORS 💰

AWS Bites is sponsored by ⁠⁠fourTheorem⁠⁠, an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Article by AJ Stuyvenberg reporting that Function URLs have a latency of 8.35ms
GitHub repository with all the material we used in our evaluation

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:

💰 SPONSORS 💰

AWS Bites is sponsored by ⁠⁠fourTheorem⁠⁠, an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Article by AJ Stuyvenberg reporting that Function URLs have a latency of 8.35ms
GitHub repository with all the material we used in our evaluation

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:

Previous Episode

73. What is AWS Application Composer?

In this episode, we're going to be talking about AWS Application Composer - a FREE service that promises to help you build serverless applications with ease. With its simple drag-and-drop interface, it's supposed to make Infrastructure as Code a breeze. But the real question is - does it live up to the hype? We know a lot of you are probably struggling with building applications using CloudFormation. It's a real pain, right? So, we decided to take Application Composer for a spin and see if it's worth adding to your toolkit or giving it a hard pass. After covering a generic overview of the service, how it works, and the main concepts, we discuss our experience in creating a new simple serverless application from scratch only using API Gateway, Lambda, and S3. Then we cover what it looks like to import an existing project (a slightly more complicated one) into Application Composer and find out what works and what doesn't. We conclude by discussing some other things that didn't work as expected and by providing our general recommendation on whether you should be using this service today.

💰 SPONSORS 💰

AWS Bites is sponsored by ⁠fourTheorem⁠, an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

⁠Web platform filesystem Access API
The current status of cross-browser support for the File System Access API
Our first Application Composer demo source code
Earthquake notifier serverless project
Our previous episode on Fargate and how to optimize cost for it

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts:

Next Episode

75. GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT: Game Changers for Developers?

In this special episode of AWS Bites, we drop all our opinions about the sudden growth of AI and how it is going to change the future as we know it! We begin by taking a trip down memory lane and discovering the types of AI tools that have been used in the past and how they have helped us. Then, we'll dive into ChatGPT, a language model that can assist us in writing and even creating code. We're especially excited to discuss how ChatGPT can be used to create slide decks or even write a book or a blog post. But wait, there's more! We'll also explore the utility of other AI tools such as Grammarly and OpenAI Whisper for improving our writing and transcribing spoken words into text. Moving forward, we'll examine how we tried to use AI to develop cloud applications on platforms like AWS. We'll also consider the impact of AI on the education system and how it can be used to modernize complex systems, or for learning, including programming languages that are new to developers. Now, we know there might be some concerns about using AI, such as whether it takes away the fun of software engineering or reduces creativity. But fear not! We'll address these concerns head-on and explore how AI can actually make us more productive and lead to exciting new discoveries. Finally, we'll discuss the exciting possibilities for AI and its potential to democratize access to the job market and society in general.

💰 SPONSORS 💰

AWS Bites is sponsored by ⁠⁠⁠fourTheorem⁠⁠⁠, an AWS Consulting Partner offering training, cloud migration, and modern application architecture.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Our episode about OpenAI Whisper for generating transcripts
David Boyne's AI-powered story generation tool (AWS Blog post)
The Fission project for simplifying monolith to microservices migrations

🎁 BONUS CONTENT A Limerick by ChatGPT On the Amazon Cloud far away, Where businesses went to play, The costs grew so vast, Their budgets were trashed, As their dollars all floated away!

You can listen to AWS Bites wherever you get your podcasts: