[HN Gopher] Blueboat, an open-source alternative to Cloudflare W... ___________________________________________________________________ Blueboat, an open-source alternative to Cloudflare Workers Author : ushakov Score : 96 points Date : 2021-11-23 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | tmikaeld wrote: | This is open source serverless functions that implement Web API | functions. | | Some distinctions: | | 1. Cloudflare Workers are Isolates, Blueboat are processes. | | 2. Cloudflare Workers are globally distributed and working in an | anycast network, blueboat doesn't manage the network layer and | are not distributed. | mnutt wrote: | My recollection is that Cloudflare Workers uses Isolates, but | also employs various process-based strategies. More detail | here: | | https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/learning/security-... | nikivi wrote: | I thought the reason why Cloudflare Workers were great is that | they utilize the many CDN points that Cloudflare owns. Or you can | use Blueboat with say Fastly and achieve nearly the same thing? | zild3d wrote: | Same, the cloudflare workers tagline is "Deploy serverless code | instantly across the globe to give it exceptional performance, | reliability, and scale." Maybe I missed something in the | blueboat readme, but don't see how this deploys across the | globe and scales automatically | | How about 0ms cold starts? | | Is this actually open source cloudflare workers or just open | source serverless functions? | | https://workers.cloudflare.com/ | shoelessone wrote: | Same (blue) boat here. | | To be honest, how Cloudflare Workers work is a bit of a mystery | to me as I've only done some very basic prototyping with the | service (and not really focusing on the "edge" aspect of them), | but it seems like the important "stuff" that makes them what | they are is how they are deployed. | | I am REALLY going to show my ignorance here, but is there some | chance that the idea is these "workers" are intended to be | deployed in the users browser for example, as actual service | workers or something? i.e. is this more of a framework for | creating service workers vs running in the "backend"? | ushakov wrote: | i think cloudflare worker is basically like a browser tab | | the only difference is that your browser is cloudflare and | globally-distributed | emj wrote: | Cloudflare workers are executed on servers and quickly thrown | away, they use APIs that make this clear as well, it has | nothing to do with service workers. Could you expand a bit on | you question? | beepbooptheory wrote: | Cloudflare workers != js workers. Kinda seems like that's | what you are talking about at the end. In my understanding, | Cloudflare workers, and "edge" stuff generally, are more like | ephemeral server processes that can happen per request, which | are backed by some kind of extensive infrastructure that | cloudflare, aws, et al can provide. | | Its not a server, but the promise a server will be there if | someone hits that endpoint. Anything client side is not | changed. | mnutt wrote: | Cloudflare Workers have their own additional compelling value | prop in operating on the edge. But I think something like this | could offer a lot of value for a different use case: | | In building complex SaaS apps, there's usually a constant flow | of customer requests for custom features. Scripting, if managed | very carefully [0], can provide an outlet for that and also | allow people to glue together different features. AWS pushes | people towards Lambda for customizing/gluing different AWS | services. | | A product could use AWS Lambda for its own scripting/glue, but | that may end up being a little bit too free-form and depending | on the use case Lambda cold start times may be unacceptable. So | something like Blueboat could eventually be useful for running | untrusted code to power customization of SaaS apps. This is | especially the case if your service isn't marketed toward | developers who can easily run their own Lambdas. | | [0] Opening your app to scripting automatically exposes a huge | API surface area which you'll likely have to support for a long | time. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-23 23:00 UTC)