12 Frameworks for Creating Serverless Apps

Serverless computing has revolutionized the way we build and run applications by allowing developers to build and deploy code without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. This approach enables greater scalability, reduces costs, and improves efficiency.

When it comes to developing serverless applications, frameworks play a crucial role in abstracting away complexities and speeding up development. There are now dozens of useful serverless frameworks to choose from, each with their own strengths and target use cases.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the top 12 serverless app development frameworks you should know about.

An Overview of Serverless Frameworks

Before diving into the specific frameworks, let‘s first understand what serverless frameworks are and why they are useful.

Serverless frameworks are tools that help developers build applications using serverless architectures on cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. The core responsibilities of a serverless framework include:

• Providing a simplified way to define serverless resources like functions, databases, storage, APIs, etc.

• Automating provisioning and deployment of serverless infrastructure and code.

• Managing the complexity of stitching together different services and components.

• Ensuring best practices around security, reliability, and scalability.

• Adding useful utilities for development workflows like local testing, debugging, packaging, etc.

• Supporting flexible configuration and providing ways to define parameters, environment variables, etc.

By using a strong serverless framework, developers can focus on writing code rather than worrying about underlying infrastructure. The framework handles all the heavy-lifting of deploying and operating the app in a serverless environment.

Now let‘s take a look at 12 of the most popular open-source serverless frameworks available today.

AWS Amplify

AWS Amplify is an end-to-end development framework optimized for building scalable serverless web and mobile apps on AWS.

Some of the key features include:

• Simplified workflows to configure serverless backends with data, storage, authentication, and business logic.

• Frontend framework integrations like React, Angular, Vue, and mobile SDKs.

• Hosting support for web apps, static sites, and mobile distribution.

• User management capabilities including signup, login, social providers, etc.

• Integrations with AWS services like Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3, and more.

• CLI toolchain for continuous deployment and hosting.

Overall, Amplify provides the easiest path for frontend or full-stack developers to build complete apps with serverless backends on AWS.

Serverless Framework

The Serverless Framework is the most widely adopted serverless tooling platform. It provides support for all major cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, etc.

Key features include:

• Flexible YAML configuration to define serverless resources for different cloud platforms.

• Automated deployment workflows with minimal configuration.

• Plugin ecosystem and extensive documentation.

• Support for Node.js, Python, Java, Go, and C# runtimes.

• Utilities for local testing, monitoring, troubleshooting.

• Active open source community with ~32k GitHub stars.

The Serverless Framework is a great choice for developers who want provider-agnostic support to build serverless apps across different cloud platforms.

SAM Framework

The AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) is a framework specifically optimized for building serverless applications on AWS.

Key capabilities include:

• Simplified YAML syntax for defining serverless resources like functions, databases, APIs, etc.

• Packaging and deployment to AWS Lambda and other services.

• CI/CD integration with AWS CodePipeline.

• Support for different runtimes including Node.js, Python, Java, Go, and .NET.

• Integration with other AWS services like DynamoDB, API Gateway, SQS, etc.

• Local testing and debugging with Docker.

The SAM Framework is great for developers who want to use AWS-native tooling to build sophisticated serverless apps on AWS.

Claudia.js

Claudia.js is a lightweight serverless framework optimized for Node.js projects.

Key features:

• Deploy Node.js code to AWS Lambda and API Gateway.

• Seamless packaging for Lambda and NPM modules.

• Automate infrastructure provisioning and deployment.

• Minimal configuration to get started.

• Support for routes, middlewares, cron jobs, etc.

• CLI and API for automating deployments and DevOps.

Claudia.js makes it extremely easy to get started with serverless Node.js development on AWS without learning complex new frameworks.

Chalice

Chalice is a Python serverless microframework from AWS that helps developers easily build serverless apps using Lambda and API Gateway.

Key features:

• Python decorators to map functions to events and routes.

• Automatically configures Lambda and API Gateway resources.

• Local debugging support with auto-reload.

• CI/CD integration via CLI tooling and pipeline support.

• IAM policy generation for least privilege security.

• Integration with various AWS events and triggers.

For Python developers, Chalice provides a super easy way to build serverless microservices and apps on AWS.

Up

Up is a lightweight CLI framework that makes deployment incredibly fast across different serverless providers.

Key capabilities:

• Deploy functions, sites, APIs, apps with one command per project.

• Support for AWS Lambda, Netlify, Zeit, and Kubernetes backends.

• Built-in throttling, zero downtime deployments, and error reporting.

• Plugins for common frameworks like Next.js static sites.

• Simple Golang API and YAML-based configuration.

Up is great for developers who value deployment speed above everything else. It brings CI/CD-style deployment workflows to the serverless world.

Architect

Architect is an open source framework for defining serverless infrastructure across multiple cloud platforms and runtimes using a declarative YAML-based syntax.

Key features:

• Vendor-neutral infrastructure as code approach.

• Reusable infrastructure components and templates.

• Local development and testing utilities.

• Workflow automation around deployments, migrations, etc.

• Integration with Terraform for advanced infrastructure management.

• Plugin system for extending capabilities.

Architect is great for larger organizations that need a consistent and flexible way to define and manage serverless infrastructure across platforms.

Zappa

Zappa makes it easy to build and deploy Python serverless apps and microservices on AWS Lambda and API Gateway.

Key capabilities:

• Minimal configuration required to get started.

• Auto packaging and deployment of Python apps and functions.

• Support for WSGI web apps, async functions, CLI apps, and cron jobs.

• Utilities for rollbacks, error logging, monitoring, etc.

• Community plugin ecosystem.

For Python developers, Zappa provides a streamlined way to ship Python code to AWS Lambda without having to learn new frameworks or paradigms.

Jets

Jets is a Ruby serverless framework built to help developers easily build auto-scaling APIs and jobs on AWS.

Key features:

• Generate entire projects and boilerplate code from templates.

• Auto-deploy Ruby code to Lambda and other AWS services.

• Tight integration with Rails ActiveRecord entities and Rack middleware.

• Support for cron jobs, background workers, etc.

• Integrated Capistrano-style deployment.

For Ruby developers, Jets allows building serverless apps without having to leave common frameworks and paradigms.

Midway

Midway is an enterprise-ready Node.js serverless framework that enables complex scenarios like microservices and container-based deployment.

Key capabilities:

• TypeScript support with IoC container based injection model.

• Extensible through modular architecture and hooks.

• Integrated service mesh via gRPC and other protocols.

• Compatible with common Node.js runtimes like Express, Koa, and EggJS.

• Includes advanced patterns for enterprise development.

For more complex Node.js serverless use cases, Midway provides powerful abstractions and architecture.

Nuclio

Nuclio is an open source "serverless for data science" platform optimized for data workloads and real-time streaming.

Key features:

• Integrated data science notebook and model deployment.

• Real-time data processing via triggers and streaming ingest.

• GPU acceleration and low-latency optimization.

• Integrated monitoring, logging, and visualization.

• Streaming integration with Kafka, Kinesis, and more.

For real-time analytics and ML workloads, Nuclio provides an optimized serverless platform.

Fission

Fission is an open source serverless framework optimized for Kubernetes environments.

Main capabilities:

• Functions-as-a-Service on Kubernetes runtime.

• Auto-scale Kubernetes pods on demand.

• Multi-runtime support including NodeJS, Python, Go, Binary.

• Event-driven triggers from 90+ sources.

• Kubernetes native abstractions for autoscaling and deployment.

For those running on Kubernetes, Fission offers a simple serverless abstraction layer on top.

OpenFaaS

OpenFaaS is an open-source serverless framework for Kubernetes and Docker with strong community adoption.

Key features:

• Deploy functions via Docker images or code.

• Auto-scaling based on metrics and load.

• CLI and UI portal to invoke and manage functions.

• Function marketplace and ecosystem.

• SDKs for Python, Node.js, .NET, Java, and more.

For those using Kubernetes or Docker, OpenFaaS brings simple serverless capabilities.

Kubeless

Kubeless provides a Kubernetes-native serverless framework to deploy code via containers and auto-scale on demand.

Main features:

• Write functions in Python, Node.js, Ruby, Java, Ballerina, .NET Core.

• Auto-scale pods from 0 and up per function.

• Declarative Kubernetes CRDs for function resources.

• Trigger functions via HTTP, events, schedules, messaging.

• Integration with Kubernetes primitives like configmaps, RBAC, etc.

For core Kubernetes development, Kubeless provides simple abstractions for running functions and event-driven workloads.

Choosing a Serverless Framework

When evaluating serverless frameworks, here are some key selection criteria:

• Cloud platform – AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, etc.

• Language and runtime – Node.js, Python, .NET, Ruby, Java, Go etc.

• App architecture – Microservices, monoliths, single page apps.

• Team skills – Optimize for existing experience.

• Local dev experience – Important for developer productivity.

• Production features – Deployments, config management, monitoring, etc.

• Community & support – Documentation, GitHub activity, contributors.

The "best" serverless framework ultimately depends on your specific needs and environment. Every app and infrastructure setup will have its own considerations.

Conclusion

Serverless frameworks play a crucial role in simplifying serverless application development across clouds. They empower developers to build scalable apps faster without managing servers.

In this guide, we explored 12 of the most popular open-source serverless frameworks used by practitioners today. Each framework has its own strengths and is optimized for different platforms, languages, and use cases.

As you evaluate options for building your next serverless application, consider the key criteria of your infrastructure, team skills, production needs, and cloud platform to pick the best framework fit.