Comparing Serverless and Containers: Choosing the Superior Option for Microservices

The world of technology is already a bustling marketplace, overflowing with options for developers, companies, and so on and on. It is an equally compelling market when it comes to microservices and among the most tempting choices are two distinctive approaches, namely, containers and the trendy serverless, where code simply appears on demand. So far, so good, yes? More the options, the better for customers and the market and whatnot, right? Right. However, the problem often starts with companies struggling to understand which of the two options best suits their microservices-based offering.

You have come to just the right place if you too had been wondering which one to choose. So, in this article, I talk about containers and serverless in terms of microservices, along with their respective advantages and disadvantages, their respective use cases, and some of the key differences between the two for microservices applications. Let’s go.

What are Containers for Microservices?

Containers: In the context of micro services architecture, containers are simply lightweight, portable, and self-sufficient units. All you need to know is that each container holds everything a microservice needs to run smoothly. This means the containers contain the micro service’s code, libraries, runtime environment, and settings – all neatly packed and ready to be deployed anywhere.

Pros:

• Prevents conflicts and is reliable since each container is its isolated environment.
• They are much faster to start and stop as compared to virtual machines since containers share the host OS kernel
• Conducive to quick scalability of micro services

Cons:

• Sharing the host OS kernel translates into potential security risks
• Dealing with multiple containers and their dependencies can be quite a complicated task

Use cases:

• Hybrid and multi-cloud deployments
• Containers are also quite well-suited for stateless micro services

What is Serverless for Microservices?

Serverless: I must first clarify that in the context of microservices, serverless refers to a deployment model, or an implementation model if you will. What I mean to say is that serverless is not an architectural style such as microservices. Nonetheless, serverless functions are a mighty powerful tool for creating and deploying microservices-based apps.

Pros:

• Ensures faster development and deployment
• Cost-efficiency on account of pay-per-use model for function execution
• It gets built-in fault tolerance and redundancy

Cons:

• Vendor lock-in
• Initial function invocations may be slower at first

Use cases:

• Personalization and recommendation engines
• Image and file processing

Now, let’s move to the main topic.

Containers vs Serverless: Know the Differences

• Cost: With containers, you pay for the infrastructure that hosts them, even through idle periods. This is not the case with the serverless model, wherein you only pay for the actual execution time of your functions.
• Scalability: Teams need to manually configure as well as manage scaling, a complicated endeavor if large apps are involved, with containers. The serverless model enables automatic scaling based on event triggers.
• App complexity: Containers are easily quite suitable for simple as well as complex apps and even offer more control over the entire software stack. However, the serverless model is best used for smaller, simpler apps that have been broken down into independent functions.
• Resource utilization: Each container uses its own resources, even if idle. This can translate into underutilization in case the workloads are unpredictable. With the serverless model, on the other hand, the resources are dynamically allocated.

Final Words

I hope this containers vs serverless comparison guide helps you make an informed decision. Nonetheless, the fact remains that ultimately, the best choice depends on your specific needs. This is why it is imperative you take the time to strategize and then choose.