If you’ve ever deployed a serverless function and thought,
“This should be fast, right? It’s at the edge!”
…only to find your “edge” is slower than your morning coffee machine, welcome to the club. ☕
In 2025, edge compute is the hottest battleground:
- AWS offers Lambda@Edge (the old guard, battle-tested).
- Cloudflare ships Workers (lightweight, everywhere).
- Vercel pushes Edge Functions (tied tightly to Next.js).
But which one should you pick? Let’s break it down — with latency numbers, limits, costs, and some laughs along the way.
First, What is “Edge Compute”?
Imagine you run a bakery. You could bake bread in a central factory (like a traditional data center) and ship it everywhere. Or you could have mini ovens in every city, baking bread right where customers live. That’s edge computing: processing closer to users, reducing latency.
The three platforms we’ll compare are those ovens. Some are huge and flexible (AWS), some are tiny and efficient (Cloudflare), and some come with fancy packaging (Vercel).
1. Latency: Who’s Fastest in 2025?
Latency = how long it takes for your function to respond. Users feel latency — it’s the difference between “this site is snappy” and “ugh, did it freeze?”
AWS Lambda@Edge
- Cold starts: 150–400ms (Java, Python, Node).
- Warm responses: ~50ms.
- Deployed in ~200+ PoPs, but not every AWS region.
Cloudflare Workers
- Cold starts: basically zero (workers spin up instantly, thanks to isolates).
- Median response: <20ms globally.
- Runs in ~310+ cities.
Vercel Edge Functions
- Cold starts: near-zero (also isolate-based, like Workers).
- Response: 20–50ms.
- Edge network: powered by Cloudflare + own infra.
👉 Winner for latency: Cloudflare Workers, but Vercel is close. AWS Lambda@Edge lags because of VM-based cold starts.
2. Limits: What Can You (Not) Do?
Edge platforms aren’t full servers. They come with quirks.
Lambda@Edge
- Runtime: Node.js, Python only (at edge).
- Memory: Up to 3,008 MB.
- Execution time: Up to 30s.
- No native WebSockets.
Cloudflare Workers
- Runtime: V8 isolates (no Node APIs).
- Memory: ~128MB (per isolate).
- Execution time: 30s for paid plans, 10ms CPU per request on free.
- Awesome extras: Durable Objects, KV store, R2 (object storage).
Vercel Edge
- Runtime: Web-standard APIs (fetch, Request, Response).
- Memory: ~128MB.
- Execution time: ~15s (shorter than Lambda).
- Focus: tightly coupled to Next.js App Router.
👉 Winner for flexibility: Lambda@Edge.
👉 Winner for simplicity: Cloudflare Workers (web-standard).
👉 Best for Next.js devs: Vercel Edge.
3. Cost: Who’s Cheapest?
Money talks. Let’s see where your wallet cries the least.
Lambda@Edge (AWS)
- $0.60 per 1M requests.
- $0.20 per GB-second.
- Data transfer: extra.
Cloudflare Workers
- Free tier: 100,000 requests/day.
- Paid: $5/month includes 10M requests.
- After that: $0.30 per 1M requests.
- Includes global edge distribution.
Vercel Edge Functions
- Free tier: 1M requests/month.
- Pro plan: included up to 100GB-hours.
- After that: $0.65 per 1M invocations.
👉 Winner for cost: Cloudflare Workers (especially at scale).
Example Use Cases
- Personalized headers or A/B testing at scale → Cloudflare Workers.
- Heavy data processing near users (e.g., image resizing) → Lambda@Edge (more memory).
- Next.js apps with server components + server actions → Vercel Edge Functions.
Production Patterns You Can Copy
- Cache then Compute
- Use Cloudflare KV or AWS CloudFront caching in front of functions.
- Reduce function invocations → reduce cost.
- Hybrid Deployments
- Use Vercel Edge for frontend + Cloudflare Workers for API.
- Or AWS Lambda@Edge for image processing + Workers for redirects.
- Failover Strategy
- Workers make great failover layers because of global reach.
Interactive Check-In 👀
- Have you ever deployed a function to AWS and thought, “Why is my edge in Virginia when my users are in Singapore?”
- Would you sacrifice memory (Cloudflare’s 128MB limit) for blazing speed?
- Are you team AWS stability, team Cloudflare speed, or team Vercel DX?
Drop your answer below — let’s make this a debate worth having. ⚔️
Final Thoughts
By 2025:
- AWS Lambda@Edge is like a truck: powerful, but slow to start.
- Cloudflare Workers are like scooters: light, fast, cheap, but limited capacity.
- Vercel Edge Functions are like Uber Black: comfy, expensive, but perfectly tailored to Next.js riders.
So which one wins?
👉 The one that fits your use case.
But if you want global, low-latency apps without breaking the bank, Cloudflare Workers often steal the show.
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