State of Edge Functions

Introduction

The ecosystem around edge functions has grown very rapidly over the last few years. However, information on best practices associated with their use remains highly fragmented — particularly when it comes to more innovative, emerging applications. The goal of this annual survey is to shed light on the most common tools, use cases and expectations from the large community of existing edge function developers.


For more detailed analysis, check out the corresponding blog post.

Tools & Platforms

Notable open ended responses include "Fly.io", "Render", "Endpts.io", "Rtedge.net", "KNative", and "Supabase".
Notable open ended responses include "Cloudflare Durable Objects", "Firebase", "Redis Cloud", "API gateways", and "AWS SQS".

Developer Experience

Notable open ended responses include "Distributed database synchronization", "Testing webhook related functionalities", "Framework edge support", and "Monitoring, Alerting, Tracing, Observabilty in general".

Use Cases

Notable open ended responses include "True serverless, deploy everywhere at once around the globe, no OS updates, fast continuous deployment, easy to server render", and "No infrastructure to maintain".
Gluing together APIs ordatabasesAuthenticationLoad balancingData protection & privacycomplianceTransforming responsesDynamic websitepersonalizationGeolocation-basedpersonalizationCacheRedirectsReal time communication(with WebSockets or longpolling)Image resizingA/B testingSetting cookiesSearch autocompleteSession storageSigning requests020406080100120140160180200
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Notable open ended responses include "Simple performant modern server-rendered website", "Safely exposing Kubernetes workloads from protected networks", and "Asynchronous, event-driven things. Such as sending a welcome email after a user signs up.".
AuthenticationGluing together APIs ordatabasesLoad balancingDynamic websitepersonalizationReal time communication(with WebSockets or longpolling)Data protection & privacycomplianceGeolocation-basedpersonalizationCacheImage resizingTransforming responsesSearch autocompleteSession storageA/B testingSetting cookiesSigning requestsRedirects020406080100120140160
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Resources

Came across a case studyor blog postMy company uses themSaw an offering from anexisting infra partnerResearching a specificuse caseConversation with otherdevelopersConference talk020406080100120
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Predictions

Notable open ended responses include "Compatibility with existing libraries", "Targeted regional deployments", and "Cost estimation is unclear".

Demographics

Full-stack EngineerFront-end EngineerFounderArchitect / CTOEngineering ManagerBack-end EngineerDevOps EngineerSecOps Engineer020406080100120140160
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