Lambda

Ever needed to automatically generate screenshots of web pages? Maybe for social media previews, monitoring, or just because manually screenshotting 50 URLs sounds like torture. I built this exact API for a client who needed to generate previews of user-submitted websites. Here’s how to build your own serverless screenshot service that can handle thousands of requests without breaking the bank. Why Lambda + Puppeteer? Before we dive in, let’s talk about why this architecture makes sense: ...

Building a Poor Man’s Vercel: Deploy Any Framework to AWS in Under $5/month Last week, Vercel quoted me $20/month for a simple portfolio site that gets 1000 visits per day. GitHub Pages couldn’t handle my Next.js API routes. Netlify’s build minutes vanished in 3 days. So I built my own Vercel clone on AWS. It handles Next.js (with ISR), Nuxt, SvelteKit, and even Remix. Total cost? $3.50/month. Here’s exactly how to build a production-ready deployment platform that rivals Vercel’s features without the price tag. ...

AWS Lambda VPC Configuration: The Complete Guide to Private Networking and Cost Optimization with NAT Instances Three months ago, I got a $400 AWS bill that made me question everything I knew about serverless architecture. The culprit? NAT Gateways supporting Lambda functions that barely handled 10,000 requests per month. That’s when I learned the hard way that “serverless” doesn’t mean “cheap” when you need proper networking. After weeks of deep-diving into VPC configurations, NAT alternatives, and cost optimization, I cut our Lambda networking costs by 85% while maintaining security and performance. Here’s everything I learned about running Lambda functions in VPCs the cost-effective way. ...