AWS Lambda

license

Proprietary

service

proprietary AWS-only SaaS (no self-host)

underlying-microVM

Firecracker is Apache-2.0 OSS but the Lambda control/data plane is closed

weights

n/a

source

closed

Lambda is a proprietary managed serverless service, and the closed counterpart to the open runtimes in this category. Firecracker, the microVM substrate underneath it, is separately open source but is a different product; Lambda itself is not self-hostable.

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/firecracker-lightweight-virtualization-for-serverless-computing/ recorded 2026-06-04

  Firecracker microVM powers Lambda; Lambda is AWS-managed proprietary service

• https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/faqs/ recorded 2026-09-29

  FAQ page describes Lambda only as an AWS-run service where functions are deployed as "package and deploy functions as .zip file archives that you can upload directly through the console, CLI, or SDKs, or as container images". Searched the body for self-host, open source and license: none; no source or self-hosted distribution is offered, and MicroVMs are "Built on the same Firecracker virtualization powering 15 trillion+ monthly Lambda Function invocations".

AWS discloses invocation and active-customer figures for Lambda that describe mass-market use far beyond what any package or download count could show. Lambda has no package, repository or registry entry to count independently, and AWS's disclosed figures describe general serverless usage rather than agent code execution specifically.

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/firecracker-lightweight-virtualization-for-serverless-computing/ recorded 2026-09-29

  Blog post states "Lambda processes trillions of executions for hundreds of thousands of active customers every month", the adoption disclosure.

• https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/faqs/ recorded 2026-09-29

  FAQ page says Lambda MicroVMs are "Built on the same Firecracker virtualization powering 15 trillion+ monthly Lambda Function invocations"; it publishes no customer or developer count (searched for customers, active customers, developers).

AWS Lambda runs code in seven languages natively and any other through a Runtime API, isolating each function in its own Firecracker microVM. Lambda MicroVMs extend that isolation to user- and AI-generated code with near-instant resume and persistent state, on a service with a long production record at very large scale.

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/firecracker-lightweight-virtualization-for-serverless-computing/ recorded 2026-09-29

  Blog post states Firecracker "can launch a microVM in as little as 125 ms today" and "consumes about 5 MiB of memory per microVM", and that Lambda processes "trillions of executions for hundreds of thousands of active customers every month".

• https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/faqs/ recorded 2026-09-29

  FAQ page lists supported languages and isolation: "AWS Lambda natively supports Java, Go, PowerShell, Node.js, C#, Python, and Ruby code" with a Runtime API for others, states "Each AWS Lambda function runs in its own isolated environment", and says functions scale "at a rate of up to 1000 concurrent executions every 10 seconds".

• https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/faqs/ recorded 2026-09-29

  FAQ page describes Lambda MicroVMs as one that "combines VM-level isolation, near-instant launch and resume, and state persistence across interactions", preserving suspended state "for up to 8 hours" and supporting "up to 32 GB of memory and 16 vCPUs" for containers "run on Amazon Linux 2023".