Skip to content

faasd deployment - a lightweight & portable faas engine

faasd is OpenFaaS reimagined, but without the cost and complexity of Kubernetes. It runs on a single host with very modest requirements, making it fast and easy to manage. Under the hood it uses containerd and Container Networking Interface (CNI) along with the same core OpenFaaS components from the main project.

When should you use faasd over OpenFaaS on Kubernetes?

  • You have a cost sensitive project - run faasd on a 5-10 USD VPS or on your Raspberry Pi
  • When you just need a few functions or microservices, without the cost of a cluster
  • When you don't have the bandwidth to learn or manage Kubernetes
  • To deploy embedded apps in IoT and edge use-cases
  • To shrink-wrap applications for use with a customer or client

faasd does not create the same maintenance burden you'll find with maintaining, upgrading, and securing a Kubernetes cluster. You can deploy it and walk away, in the worst case, just deploy a new VM and deploy your functions again.

Watch a video comparing the two:

Meet faasd. Look Ma’ No Kubernetes! - Serverless Summit

Deployment

faasd is a static binary which requires a Linux system configured with systemd.

Minimal system resources are required such as:

  • 512MB-1GB RAM (1GB recommended)
  • 2-4 vCPU cores minimum
  • 10-25GB of disk space
  • x86_64 or 64-bit Arm CPU architecture
  • The Raspberry Pi 3, 4 & 5 are also supported

Local development/testing:

  • Windows and Mac users can use multipass to deploy faasd in a VM
  • Linux users can deploy faasd directly, or also use multipass

Production use:

  • Use the bash installation script
  • Deploy using the provided cloud-init script
  • Deploy using terraform, or adapt the terraform examples

Get started