Developers and customers are facing challenges in finding, cloning, building, and deploying serverless apps. Typically, we need to get help from developers in the community, look at code samples, copy-and-paste the code, ensure they build, ensure they function properly, and ensure the roles and permissions are set up appropriately. Having to do all that is complicated for developers new to the the serverless paradigm.

There are several options to get started with serverless applications. Earlier, these options included AWS blueprints. However, the blueprints are a limited set that AWS creates and curates. It is not open to third parties and typically the functions have a limited scope in terms of the resources while serverless applications are a lot more than that (scalable, available, fault-tolerant, and secure). They are not linked to GitHub (so you can’t go look at the source code and make changes). Hence, these blueprints are characterized by the limited selection, scope, and language choices.

At the same time, many serverless examples are shared on GitHub. GitHub provides a massive selection, but the developer has to find the right serverless apps, ensure source code quality, and they also have to recreate the build environment. GitHub is not connected to the authoring workflow for Lambda functions. There are essentially no hooks from GitHub to AWS that helps set up the right permissions and roles. 

GitHub provides great community experience and blueprints provide a good authoring experience, but we need a solution that provides the pluses of both. The solution is the recently announced AWS Serverless Application Repository. Though the offerings are limited currently, it will definitely pick up in the weeks and months ahead.

The AWS Serverless Application Repository is a collection of serverless applications published by developers, companies, and partners in the serverless community. It helps you easily discover, deploy, and publish serverless applications. For example, you can deploy published code samples, mobile backends, web backends, or complete applications to get started with AWS serverless compute in minutes. The repository enables sharing between developers, helps companies to connect with customers, and enable customers to move faster with the serverless ecosystem. You can share the applications privately within your AWS account (or organizations and departments) or publicly.

 Each application is packaged with an AWS SAM template that defines the AWS resources used. Publicly shared applications also include a link to the application’s source code. Currently, there is no additional charge to use the Serverless Application Repository—you only pay for the AWS resources used in the applications you deploy. You can also use the Serverless Application Repository to publish your own applications and share them within your team, other teams across your organization, or with the community at large. 

The AWS Serverless Application Repository is currently available in preview. To deploy and publish applications in the Serverless Application Repository, you will need to sign up for the preview.