OpenFaaS VS Appwrite

OpenFaaS - https://www.openfaas.com

This is where I see K8S coming in – teachers can provide dev deployments that are setup for students to learn. Teachers can also provide containers that run automated tests against the student containers for assessment! Plus, we can smooth over some of the git workflow stuff for the ripest of beginners; we can integrate with github to sync their work on our platform to repositories on their github account, so that they can really take ownership of the work they do on the platform. Last, students can graduate their work from development into production very easily, since we can take the base images + student diffs, build a new "prod" image for the student. We can run students' prod work on "serverless" K8S frameworks like fission or OpenFaas to be able to host many low-traffic "production" apps at the same time.

OpenFAAS or FN Project are options

Closest thing I can think of is https://www.openfaas.com (which runs on top of K8s).

OpenFaaS for the serverless functions

If you want to look into FaaS in selfhosted ways, take a look at OpenFaaS, which nowadays works on Kubernetes though - https://www.openfaas.com/. Note that the CE version of OpenFaaS only includes some basic autoscaling. For more complex solutions check out their paid version.

The two biggest options are OpenWhisk and OpenFaas. Check out /r/serverless for more options. I'm experimenting currently with OpenFaas as it's the lighter weigh to of the two.

The other case where it may not be useful is in some internal applications. Maintaining a helm chart for an application can end up being a sizable amount of work, and they do not allow arbitrary inputs, so if you miss some key (i.e. "imagePullSecrets,") you can end up spending a lot of time key-chasing across your charts. I have heard of folks using Kustomize in such a situation, although another option is to use a meta chart (one chart for many apps) or Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) framework like Serverless, OpenFaas, Knative, etc.

Do you want to use a FaaS or just toy with making your own? If you just want to use something check out OpenFaaS, it's very easy to get started and is well documented: https://www.openfaas.com/

If you want to build your own FaaS, I'd still explore OpenFaaS as its creator has documented a lot of its creation and you will soon discover the critical things you'll need to figure out for building your own similar service (i.e. stuff like sandboxed execution environment, API gateway, scaling up and down functions, etc.).

In this article, we will look at how to build a simple message board web app with Next.js and AppWrite. In the end, we’ll have a working web app where users can authenticate, post their messages and read the messages of others. I worked with developers on my team to put this guide together. We think this is a good context for learning how to better use these tools and to build something useful along the way.

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See the testimonial on the official Appwrite page.

Using ready-made platforms: Instead of building the infrastructure and platform architecture for microservices from the ground up, you can consider utilizing ready-made platforms that mostly do the heavy lifting. E.g., Amplication, Strapi, AppWrite

Backend service (REST API, Supabase, Strapi, NestJs, Appwrite, or Airtable),

https://github.com/appwrite/appwrite: That is the only builder I know which currently does not have an enterprise option. I did not test it because of some scary bugs: https://github.com/appwrite/appwrite/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Abug They are also currently deploying their cloud service, so I would be at least cautious as to where they are heading.

Came here to mention Firebase as well. If it is important for you to self-host or if you want something hosted on-site, AppWrite is a good alternative BAAS but takes some initial setup compared to Firebase.

Today appwrite.io was posted in /r/vuejs and to me this looked like a nice starting point for a project. It provides a layer with services that immediately saves you some hassle when starting a project but its also generic enough that you're not investing in a tool that could be too restrictive later on. The generic nature of it is also provides the option to build out each service separately in your own solution.

Appwrite is a good option!