Used For

• +**Your cron jobs crash every weekend and ruin your Saturday** → Set up S3 file triggers that process uploads automatically, no server maintenance
• +**You're paying $200/month for a server that sits idle 90% of the time** → Lambda only charges when code actually runs, often drops costs to under $50
• +**Manual data pipeline tasks eating 10 hours of your week** → Automate Reddit/Twitter data collection with triggers that feed your database
• +Handles the boring serverless stuff - automatic scaling, memory management, connecting AWS services without writing infrastructure code
• +15-minute max runtime per function - perfect for quick tasks, useless for long-running processes

Best For

• >Your background jobs keep breaking and waking you up at 3am
• >Building APIs without babysitting servers or paying for idle time
• >You're already deep in AWS and need quick automation between S3, databases, and other services

Not For

• -Anyone who needs processes running longer than 15 minutes — Lambda will kill your function mid-task
• -Teams outside the AWS ecosystem — you're paying premium prices to recreate what other platforms do better
• -Developers who like proper debugging — get ready for the deploy-pray-check-logs cycle that'll make you miss localhost

Pairs With

• *S3 (where your files live and what triggers most Lambda functions to wake up)
• *DynamoDB (the database Lambda talks to because RDS connections are a nightmare in serverless)
• *API Gateway (turns your Lambda functions into actual web APIs people can hit)
• *CloudWatch (where you'll spend hours hunting through logs trying to figure out why your function failed)
• *Step Functions (to chain multiple Lambdas together when 15 minutes isn't enough time)
• *SQS (queues work for Lambda when you need reliable background processing)

The Catch

• !Debugging means deploying code, running it remotely, then digging through CloudWatch logs like it's 1995
• !That $20/month estimate becomes $200 when verbose logging hits you with $0.50 per GB in log storage fees
• !Cold starts add 10-20% to your bill and 500ms delays unless you pay extra for "Provisioned Concurrency"

Bottom Line

Perfect for small automated tasks, but you'll miss having a real server when you need to debug at 2am.