Serverless Framework

A CLI that turns one serverless.yml file of functions and the events that trigger them into a CloudFormation stack, and deploys it with your code to AWS Lambda.

What it is: Infrastructure as code
Used for: Serverless functions (FaaS)
Type: Commercial product
Made by: Serverless, Inc.
License: Proprietary since v4 (free below $2M annual revenue); MIT up to v3
Facts checked: 23 October 2026

What it is

The unit of work is a service: a folder with a serverless.yml (or .json, .js, .ts) file. It lists functions, each a handler that becomes an AWS Lambda function, and the events that trigger them, such as an HTTP route, a file landing in S3, a schedule or an SQS message. For each event the framework creates the infrastructure it needs, such as an API Gateway endpoint, plus an IAM role. Anything else, from DynamoDB tables to queues, goes under resources as raw CloudFormation. Variables pull values from stage settings, environment variables, Terraform state outputs or HashiCorp Vault, and some 1,000 community plugins add commands and resource types.

serverless deploy translates the file into a CloudFormation template, zips each function’s code, skips the deploy if every file hash matches the last one, uploads the zips to an S3 bucket in its own stack, and updates the stack, publishing a new version of each function. serverless deploy function -f api skips CloudFormation and just overwrites one function’s code, for quick iteration. serverless dev routes events from the deployed functions to code running on your laptop. Version 4 also deploys AWS SAM and plain CloudFormation projects, bundles TypeScript handlers with esbuild, and has added Bedrock AgentCore agents and Lambda sandboxes to serverless.yml.

Serverless, Inc. maintains it. Versions up to 3 were MIT-licensed and could deploy to several clouds. Version 4 (May 2024) is AWS-only, makes you sign in or use a licence key, and is covered by the company’s customer agreement: organizations with more than $2 million in annual revenue must buy a subscription, paid in credits ($4 each, less on annual contracts), where one credit covers one service instance (a service deployed to one stage and region for more than 10 days in a month). Everyone else uses it free, on trust. Version 3 stopped getting fixes in early 2025. Releases are frequent: 4.45.0 came out on October 20, 2026.

Why teams pick it

A whole Lambda app (functions, triggers, permissions and extra resources) fits in one short YAML file
Events are one line each, e.g. httpApi: 'GET /receipts', and the framework writes the API Gateway, SQS or S3 wiring for you
Deploys go through CloudFormation, so a failed update rolls back, and serverless diff previews changes to the stack
A large plugin ecosystem from its decade as the default Lambda tool, much of it now built into v4

Watch out for

No longer open source: since v4, organizations above $2M annual revenue pay per deployed service instance, and the CLI requires a login or licence key
AWS only since v4; earlier multi-cloud support was dropped
CloudFormation brings its own limits, such as 500 resources per stack and slow, sometimes stuck rollbacks
Lambda-centred: anything beyond functions and their events means writing raw CloudFormation under resources

Alternatives

What all infrastructure as code have in common →Compare side by side →

SSTOpen sourceA TypeScript framework that defines a whole app, from Next.js front end to functions, containers and databases, in one config file and deploys it to your own AWS or Cloudflare account.

How it fits with other technologies

What Serverless Framework uses

What uses Serverless Framework

Kubelesscould be deployed to through a plugin forServerless FrameworkServerless functions (FaaS)

serverless.yml: an HTTP function and a queue consumer, with the queue in raw CloudFormation · yaml

service: receipts

provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: nodejs22.x
  region: eu-west-1

functions:
  api:
    handler: src/api.handler      # .ts handlers are bundled with esbuild
    events:
      - httpApi: 'GET /receipts'  # creates an API Gateway HTTP API route
  process:
    handler: src/process.handler
    events:
      - sqs:
          arn:
            Fn::GetAtt: [ReceiptsQueue, Arn]
          batchSize: 10

resources:                        # anything else, as CloudFormation
  Resources:
    ReceiptsQueue:
      Type: AWS::SQS::Queue

# $ serverless deploy --stage prod

See it in a real stack

No architecture uses Serverless Framework yet. Drop it into the playground and wire it up yourself.Open playground →

Where it came from2015–2025

Austen Collins started the project in 2015 as JAWS, a framework to automate the manual setup that AWS Lambda functions then needed. He presented it at AWS re:Invent in October 2015 and published it on npm as serverless that November. In October 2016 the company he founded, Serverless, Inc., raised a $3 million seed round led by Trinity Ventures and released version 1.0, by then with more than 11,000 GitHub stars.

Versions 1 to 3 were MIT-licensed and added providers for Azure, Google Cloud and others. In October 2023 it announced that version 4 would charge organizations with more than $2 million in annual revenue, saying the small team needed funding, and keep it free for everyone else.

Version 4 reached general availability in June 2024. It dropped non-AWS providers, required authentication, moved popular plugins into the core and changed the licence to the company’s customer agreement. Version 3 lost all support in early 2025. Since then the company has kept shipping v4 releases, adding an MCP server for AI coding tools, Bedrock AgentCore agents, Lambda Managed Instances and durable functions.

Why it’s built this way

Functions and their events as the core model: The framework was built around Lambda, so a function and what triggers it are first-class, and the infrastructure behind each trigger is generated instead of declared by hand.
Compile to CloudFormation: AWS’s own engine works out the order of changes, rolls back failures and keeps track of what exists; anything it doesn’t model can be written as plain CloudFormation in the same file.
Charge large organizations for v4: The company said a small team needed revenue to keep developing the framework, and limited the fee to organizations above $2 million a year so independent developers and startups stay free.
Focus on AWS only: v4 discontinued the other cloud providers; the company says it now concentrates on giving the best experience on AWS.

Timeline

2015
JAWS presented at AWS re:Invent in October; first serverless release on npm in November
2016
Version 1.0 and a $3 million seed round led by Trinity Ventures, in October
2020
Version 2.0, in September
2022
Version 3.0, in January
2023
Plan announced to charge organizations above $2M annual revenue from v4
2024
Version 4 generally available in June: AWS-only, sign-in required, new licence
2025
Version 3 stops receiving security and bug fixes

Sources11 · facts checked 23 October 2026

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