Run code without managing servers, pay only for compute time
Free plan available, paid tiers aboveVisit WebsiteThe Bottom Line
- Price
- Free plan available, paid tiers above. Compare plans
Key facts
- AWS Lambda lets you run code without provisioning servers-just upload your function and it scales automatically
- It executes code in response to events from 200+ AWS services, charging only for compute time used
- Free tier includes 1M requests/month, then $0.20 per million requests
Pros
- Industry-standard serverless platform
- Integrates with entire AWS ecosystem
- Scales automatically to any load
- Pay only for compute time used
- Supports many languages and runtimes
Cons
- Cold starts can affect latency
- Complex pricing model
- 15-minute execution time limit
- Debugging can be challenging
- Vendor lock-in with AWS services
What is AWS Lambda?
Available on: Web
Ratings Across the Web
AWS Lambda holds an aggregate rating of 3.5 out of 5 from 1,570 reviews across G2, Capterra and Trustpilot, last checked September 17, 2026.
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Key Features
- Serverless compute
- Event-driven
- Auto-scaling
- Pay-per-use
- Multiple runtimes
- AWS integration
Pricing Plans
Pricing checked Oct 1, 2026
| Plan | Price | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | $0 |
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| Pay-as-you-go | $0.20 / million |
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| Graviton2 (ARM) | $0.16 / million |
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| Savings Plans | Up to 17% off |
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Is AWS Lambda worth the price?
Lambda pioneered serverless compute and remains the default choice in the AWS ecosystem.
The per-request pricing model is extraordinarily cost-effective for bursty, low-to-medium traffic workloads, a function handling 5 million requests/month at 256 MB with 200ms average duration costs about $2.10/month. The economics flip at high scale: sustained high-throughput workloads (>100M requests/month) often become cheaper on containers (ECS/Fargate) or even EC2.
Cold starts (100ms-2s depending on runtime) remain the main technical limitation. The pricing is transparent but has multiple dimensions (requests + duration + memory + optional provisioned concurrency) that make cost prediction harder than it looks.
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Duration billing rounds up to the nearest millisecond, but memory billing is per-GB-second at allocated memory (not used memory). Allocating 1 GB but using 200 MB still bills for 1 GB, right-sizing memory is critical
Provisioned Concurrency
eliminates cold starts but charges $0.0000041667/GB-second even when idle.
Data transfer out
Lambda itself is cheap, but responses that cross AZ boundaries or leave AWS incur standard EC2 data transfer charges ($0.01-0.09/GB). High-traffic APIs serving large payloads can have transfer costs exceed compute costs
VPC-attached Lambda
connecting to RDS or ElastiCache inside a VPC adds ~200-500ms cold start overhead and creates ENI resources.
Ephemeral storage
default 512 MB included, up to 10 GB available at $0.0000000309/GB-second. Processing large files (video, ML models) can add meaningful storage costs
CloudWatch Logs
every Lambda invocation generates logs. At 5M invocations/month generating 1 KB each, log ingestion costs $2.50/month. High-verbosity logging on high-traffic functions can cost more than the compute itself
For some workloads, the gateway costs more than Lambda
How AWS Lambda's pricing compares
At $0.16/mo, billing unit not specified, AWS Lambda is the most affordable of its 2 comparable direct competitors.
Entry paid plan, monthly. Pricing checked Oct 1, 2026.
Reviews
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Best AWS Lambda Alternatives
Top alternatives based on features, pricing, and user needs.
Serverless compute for event-driven applications on Azure
Serverless functions for Netlify sites
Serverless compute on Google Cloud
Run serverless JS/Wasm at the edge with instant cold starts
Run server-side code without managing servers, with automatic scaling and low latency.
Still deciding?
Most buyers shortlist 2 or 3 tools before committing. Pull a side-by-side comparison or browse the full alternatives shortlist below.
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AWS Lambda FAQ
How does AWS Lambda handle scaling for applications?
Which teams would benefit most from using AWS Lambda?
How is AWS Lambda priced?
Can AWS Lambda integrate with other AWS services?
What kind of real-world use case can AWS Lambda support?
How does AWS Lambda compare to Google Cloud Functions?
What are the main trade-offs when using AWS Lambda?
Source: aws.amazon.com