Serverless Container Framework

Update: In June 2025, we launched a new version of SCF with many additional features. Review the Upgrading Guide to learn more. For documentation of the original SCF, visit the legacy docs here.

One solution to deploy serverless workloads everywhere - Serverless Container Framework (SCF) is a unified development and deployment experience for containers on serverless platforms.

The value of SCF lies in its Heroku-like experience for deploying containers on serverless platforms, without vendor lock-in. Deploy to any container-supporting serverless platform. While PaaS providers charge hefty markups based on compute usage, SCF charges only a fixed cost per each container you deploy. Even better, SCF's license is free for every developer/organization making less than $2 million in revenue per year.

SCF delivers an architecture that capable of massively scalable APIs and event handling. It uses AWS Cloudfront functions for request routing, allowing developers to freely mix and transition between AWS Lambda and AWS ECS Fargate compute options, accompanied by a rich development experience.

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Features

Unified Container Development & Deployment

Deploy seamlessly to AWS Lambda and ECS Fargate via a single workflow (and more providers soon)
Mix Lambda and Fargate compute within a single API
Switch compute platforms instantly without code rewrites or downtime
Optimize container builds automatically for each compute service
Write Node.js and Python apps naturally - No Dockerfiles needed
Get production-ready infrastructure in seconds with automated VPC, networking & ALB setup

Rich Development Experience

Develop Lambda and Fargate containers rapidly with true local emulation
Route and simulate AWS ALB requests via localhost
Accelerate development with instant hot reloading
Inject live AWS IAM roles into your containers
Enjoy an elegant logging and debugging experience

Production-Ready Features

Smart code/config change detection for deployments
Supports one or multiple custom domains on the same API
Automatic SSL certificate management
Secure AWS IAM and network defaults
Load environment variables from .env, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, HashiCorp Vault, HashiCorp Terraform state, and more via Serverless Framework Variables
Multi-cloud support coming soon

Configuration

Serverless Container Framework offers simple YAML to deliver complex architectures via a serverless.containers.yml file. Here is a simple example of a full-stack application.

yaml

name: acmeinc

deployment:
  type: [email protected]

containers:
  # Web (Frontend)
  service-web:
    src: ./web
    routing:
      domain: acmeinc.com
      pathPattern: /*
    compute:
      type: awsLambda
  # API (Backend)
  service-api:
    src: ./api
    routing:
      domain: api.acmeinc.com
      pathPattern: /api/*
      pathHealthCheck: /health
    compute:
      type: awsFargateEcs
      awsFargateEcs:
        memory: 4096
        cpu: 1024
      environment:
        HELLO: world
      awsIam:
        customPolicy:
          Version: '2012-10-17'
          Statement:
            - Effect: Allow
              Action:
                - dynamodb:GetItem
              Resource:
                - '*'
    integrations:
      # Slack notifications for API errors
      error-alerts:
        type: slack
        name: 'API Error Alerts'