6 Best Serverless Plugins for Project-Specific Issues

Build, configure and deploy all necessary resources with just a few commands... The serverless framework empowers you to streamline your entire development workflow. But what if you need to tackle some project-specific issues? Then you extend its core functionality to suit your needs by implementing the best serverless plugins available.

For you might need to:

bundle a Lamba function with Webpack
empty your buckets before removing them
copy data from production to development table

So, what are your options?

to scan through the pile of already developed serverless plugins, looking for the one that addresses that specific issue
to write your own custom serverless plugin

This post here focuses on the first option. I'll reveal to you the 6 most useful community-driven plugins for the serverless framework.

1. But First: What's the Core Functionality of the Serverless Framework?

In other words:

What do you get out-of-the-box?

Here's a short list of tasks that go from being manually carried out to... automated when you go serverless:

creating, configuring, and deploying the needed resources (API Gateway and Lambda functions)
storing your code (and configuration) into a repository for later use
setting up database tables for your functions
configuring serverless templates for your subnets and VPC's

In other words: using a serverless framework streamlines all those tedious tasks of writing code on the console, configuring your resources, managing your team's workflow...

2. 6 Best Serverless Plugins to Consider for Your Next Project

And the serverless framework itself is an “ecosystem” of plugins.

Nevertheless, there are cases when its core functionality doesn't meet all your project's requirements and you need to... extend it.

Before you rush to write your own plugin, you might want to have a look at what's already been built. In this respect, here's a list of the most widely used ones:

2.1. Serverless Webpack

In a situation where you need to bundle your lambda functions with Webpack?

Let this serverless plugin here handle the job for you.

2.2. Serverless Dotenv

Here's a common scenario:

You need to load your variables, currently stored in an env file, into your serverless yaml config.

Then, this is the serverless framework plugin that comes to your rescue. It enables you to dynamically preload env files into serverless.

2.3. Serverless Offline

Need to run everything on your local machine before you deploy it?

Integrate this plugin here into your framework and it will emulate AWS Lambda and API Gateway on your PC, streamlining your whole development process.

2.4. Serverless Mocha Plugin

One of the best serverless plugins, a mocha-based one, that provides you support for your test-driven development flow.

2.5. Aliyun Function Compute

Is “injecting” Alibaba Cloud Function Compute support into your serverless app one of your project-specific needs?

Well, then this is the plugin you need! It's been built to enable support for this event-driven compute service into the serverless framework.

2.6. Serverless S3 Remover

What do you do with all those buckets that you will have been “joggling” with once you decide to delete your stack? The one you will have “overly exploited” by then, during your tests?

Well... you remove them. Along with the content that they store.

How? You let this plugin here handle the “decluttering task” for you.

The END!

These are the 6 best serverless plugins already available that you can implement into your projects.

Which one's the perfect fit for your current project-specific needs?

Photo from Unsplash

We do Web development

Go to our Web development page!

Visit page!

Recommended Stories

Tips

What Are the Advantages of Using Flutter? 10 Good Reasons to Choose It for Your Next App Project

Why would you want to build your next app with Flutter? Instead of... React Native? Or maybe Swift? What are the key advantages of using Flutter? Here are the best reasons why you'd want to give it a go for your next app project: But What Is Flutter Used For Anyway? ... for building native-looking Android and iOS apps using a single codebase. "But how is it any different from other cross-platform frameworks?" you might ask yourself. Widgets... That's right, they're Flutter's equivalent of the React Native components. Or of the native UI components, if you wish. You get to put together a fully customed UI for your app by choosing, then mixing and matching several ready-made widgets. They look either iOS-native or Android-native and... you can even create your own widgets, from the ground up. A widget could stand for a menu or a button, a slider, text, toggle... Reason #1: You Get to Share Both the UI Code and the UI Itself Between Multiple Platforms In short: you can make the most of having a common UI and business logic for all your target platforms. And this is where Flutter manages to stand out from the crowd of cross-platform frameworks: It doesn't just have a unique codebase for all platforms: it also shares both the UI and the UI code globally, across iOS and Android. In other words, one language, one UI, same business logic translates into UI consistency across platforms. Reason #2: You Reduce Maintenance Costs, One of the Main Advantages of Using Flutter And that's pretty obvious since you only have one codebase to maintain. Reason #3: You Save Time and Money (And Get to Be More Productive) Just imagine: You will use the same codebase for both the Android and iOS versions of your app. So, this can only bubble up to your... overall costs. You: build one app and run it on multiple platforms (saving time and resources) get to build more apps... faster reach a wider audience with a single investment Reason #4: You Get to Inject Native-Level of Performance into Your App "Why choose Flutter in 2020?" Because it powers your app with close-to-native performance. With Dart (Flutter's programming language) compiling everything into native code, and the need of accessing OEM widgets, out of the equation, you get better app startup times. Reason #5: You'll Develop Your App Much Faster The Flutter development experience is one of the best. And the main reason why developing a Flutter app is so much simpler and, therefore, faster. Here's why: The "hot reload" feature allows your developers to view the changes made in code on simulators, hardware, and emulators in... real-time. With no need to restart. This speeds up processes like adding new features, building your app's UI, and even testing it. One of the main advantages of using Flutter... And, where do you add that you have a huge collection of ready-to-use-widgets at hand, which speeds up your app's development process. Reason #6: You Speed Up Time to Market for Your New App Since you don't need to develop separate apps anymore, one for iOS and one for Android, you get to launch your app much faster. And to reduce your time to market. Reason #7: You Get to Fully Customize the UI Another one of the strongest Flutter app development advantages is the huge customization potential. You get to customize your app's UI in the slightest detail. And here are 2 ways that you can do that: browse through its impressive collection of prepackaged, core layout widgets, pick the ones that fit your needs, customize them to your liking and... create a fully customed UI go for some of the pre-built widgets that mimic the behavior of the iOS and the Android design languages: Cupertino and Material You're free to customize every aspect of your UI, no matter how complex, thanks to Flutter's ready-to-use widgets. ... and to save lots of time while doing it. Reason #8: You Spend Less Time Testing Your Application Just think about it: The widgets making up your UI are part of the app itself and not part of the iOS or the Android platform. So, you're less likely to face incompatibility issues. Which translates into less time invested in testing your app... Reason #9: You Can Learn It in Just About... 2 Weeks You/your development team will spend less time learning it. And this is one of the key advantages of using Flutter. Here's why: The UI in Flutter is code, basically. So, you can just put logic on the UI code to create, use, and... reuse components. Reason #10: You Get to Build a UI-Heavy App in No Time "Is Flutter a good choice?" It is if it's a UI-heavy application that you need to build. And you need it built really fast. The END! Now, whether these 10 reasons are strong enough for you to give Flutter a go or... not quite, one thing's for sure: You need a fast, great-looking app, that should incorporate all those powerful features on your wishlist. Nothing easier. Just drop us a line with that wishlist of yours and let's get it built! Image by RSunset from Pixabay ... Read more

Silviu Serdaru / Jul 31'2020

Tips

What Is the Best eCommerce Platform for Small Business in 2020? Your 6 Best Options

You need to launch your small eCommerce business fast and without breaking the bank... if possible. So, what's the best eCommerce platform for small business in 2020? And, most importantly: Which is the best eCommerce option for your store? The one that meets your specific needs? For, let me guess: your wishlist doesn't end there. You also want it to: give you enough customization freedom so you can personalize every aspect of your website be scalable, to accommodate all those big plans that you have for your store be easy to use both for you, as you build your storefront, and your customers provide you with robust sales features (and advanced SEO tools) be fast have great software integration; you want to be able to add all the extra apps and tools that you might need quick and easy Now, let's see which of these 6 best eCommerce platforms for startups ticks most of the boxes on your list: 1. Squarespace What makes Squarespace one of the first solutions to evaluate first when choosing the best eCommerce solution for your small store? It gives you total creative control over how your website will look. Squarespace stands out from this list with its sleek, modern templates. Templates that are flexible enough to enable you to DIY your online store exactly how you want it to look. With no coding skills or additional plugins needed. Key Benefits you get unlimited creative control you get an entire collection of beautifully-designed templates, as well as tons of flexibility to further customize them to your liking you get to sell your products on Instagram, as well Main Drawbacks you're not free to add any extra sales features to those that you get out of the box; there's no app market you're quite limited when it comes to payment options; there are 3 options only: Apple Pay, PayPal, and Stripe its multi-channel selling offering is limited to Instagram its sales features aren't as powerful as those of other eCommerce solutions for small businesses You'd Choose to Build Your Website with Squarespace If... it's a visually-arresting storefront that you want to create you want total creative control over your website's design 2. Best Platform for Small Business in 2020: Wix Wix is any small-scale seller's (with little to no tech knowledge) dream come true. You get: an easy to use drag and drop system to put together your store (just drag text boxes and images and position them anywhere you want on the page) tons of creative freedom over your website's looks: make your website look exactly like the one in your head the chance to build your store with... zero costs (pay when you start to actually sell products/services on your newly built website) What more could you want from a solution of eCommerce for small retailers! Key Benefits you can build your first online store in no time: you just drag and drop elements on the page you're free to design it exactly how you want it to look you get to add product videos, too Main Drawbacks you can't sell your products across multiple social channels you get a less robust inventory, compared to other platforms (i.e. you can't bulk upload products) Overall, the eCommerce tools that you get aren't as powerful as those of other platforms (i.e. Shopify). You'd Choose to Build Your Website with Wix If... you're looking for an affordable eCommerce solution you want it to be super easy to use you want to be able to personalize every little aspect of your store 3. Weebly Image by Hannes Edinger from Pixabay If you're looking for a 100% beginner-friendly and budget-friendly solution, Weebly is the one. You get to: sell for free (and upgrade later to one of its eCommerce plans) set up your small-scale eCommerce website with no tech skills Key Benefits you get to build your online store on a budget: it doesn't get any cheaper than Weebly you can get your website up and running in no time: Weebly's the most beginner-friendly eCommerce solution you'll find Main Drawbacks you're not free to customize your checkout page (a crucial page on your eCommerce website) it doesn't provide you with multichannel selling features You'd Choose to Build Your Website with Weebly If... you have a really small inventory, so you don't really need any advanced selling features 4. BigCommerce It's one of the best eCommerce options for small businesses with... big ambitions. Why? Because: you get lots of powerful eCommerce features from the get-go (robust SEO tools and selling features); you don't need to look for (and pay for) any extra apps if you need to incorporate specific selling features into your website it is the most scalable eCommerce platform for a small business Key Benefits you get to grow your small business... fast you get to expand your store's reach and keep your costs within budget by selling across various platforms (BigCommerce comes with lots of multi-channel integrations) Main Drawbacks its advanced tools come at a cost: a steep learning curve it's not as beginner-friendly as the other eCommerce platforms on this list: don't expect to get your BigCommerce store live in... a matter of hours if you don't plan to grow your business any time soon, you'll find yourself paying for powerful features that you just... don't need You'd Choose to Build Your Website with BigCommerce If... you have big plans for your small eCommerce business and you want to make them a reality... fast 5. Square Online Store Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay What makes it the perfect candidate for the title of “the best platform for small business in 2020”? it's affordable it's easy to use, for any beginner trying to launch his/her first online store on his own it taps into AI to help you make the best choices when building your site Key Benefits you get to build your website and start selling with... zero costs: Square Online Store does offer you a free plan the AI tech that it uses makes it so much easier (and faster) for you to build your store (i.e. you save valuable time when loading your products since it points out what categories they fit into) it's the “best value for money” type of eCommerce option for small-sized businesses Main Drawbacks you're not 100% free to customize your website you'll find its selling features to be quite... basic if you're planning to grow your small business You'd Choose to Build Your Website with Square Online Store If... you want to be able to combine your offline sales with your online selling strategy you're on a shoestring budget and you have zero tech skills, so you're looking for a really affordable and easy to use eCommerce platform to build your small online store... fast 6. Shopify New to eCommerce and you're looking for a turnkey solution to launch your business fast? Shopify could be the best choice for you: it's easy to use and code-free it ships with 50+ different store themes (the Shopify themes are some of the best-looking ones in the marketplace) you have lots and lots of apps to choose from to incorporate precisely the functionality that you need into your store The whole process of building your eCommerce website with Shopify could get summed up to 3 simple steps: you select the store theme you add on your content you import your products' CSVs There! You're now ready to launch your Shopify store. Key Benefits you get a huge app market and the most advanced sales-specific features on the market you get multichannel selling options (Amazon and eBay integrations here included) you can sync your inventories if you're already selling on another platform: centralize your inventory management you get a robust inventory system (i.e. you get alerted when one of your products is out of stock) you get built-in dropshipping tools, essential when you run a small business on a budget and you don't have storage for your products yet Main Drawbacks it's not exactly the most budget-friendly eCommerce platform for a small retailer expect to be charged transaction fees on your sales, unless you use its in-house payment gateway: Shopify Payments You'd Choose to Build Your Website with Shopify If... you're committed to building a successful eCommerce business (you're not selling just a couple of products) you want to create a solid foundation for your store: Shopify provides you with powerful tools to build and manage your store and a big app store to browse through and grow your business The END! The best eCommerce platform for small business in 2020 is on this list, but the real question bugging you is: “Which one's the perfect choice for my own store?” It really depends on what you value most: a low price? powerful sales tools and features? creative freedom to customize your product listings, your checkout page, your...? If what you need is a visually-appealing, easy to manage online store, equipped with advanced eCommerce features that best fit your needs, then what you need is Shopify. Now, if the idea of: digging through a huge app store browsing through a big collection of store themes to pick the one that suits your niche and store's personality setting everything up (optimizing it to rank high in search results here included) ... seems too time-consuming for you, we're here to help. Just drop us a line and let's get you that Shopify store that engages and drives sells. Image by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay ... Read more

Adriana Cacoveanu / Jul 29'2020

Tips

The SEO Shopify Checklist: How to Get Your Store to Rank Higher Fast in 10 Simple Steps (Part 2)

See? We are a team of our word. As promised in Part 1, we're back with 5 more steps to add to your SEO Shopify checklist. And to boost the ranking of your new Shopify store (and its traffic, and the sales, and... all the "good stuff" that comes from an effective SEO strategy). So, let's dive right in. Here are the other 5 simple, yet effective improvements that you can make to your eCommerce website: Step 6: Optimize Your Product Pages "How does a Shopify store rank on Google?" It "bets" on a mix of unique product descriptions and on-product-page SEO best practices. "Often times product pages don't have the content that they need to perform well in the SERPs" (MOZ.com) With so many eCommerce brands still striving to get the most out of these 2 totally ineffective tactics: using the same description on multiple product pages across their websites displaying the manufacturers' descriptions on their product pages ... you stand high chances to get your own product pages to rank higher in the SERPS. Now, let's get specific. 6.1. 4 Best Practices to Increase Engagement on Your Product Pages add unique content to each page (don't be that Shopify store owner who uses the same content across all his/her product pages!) write your own product descriptions (and make sure to create one for each product in your inventory; focus on their best features and benefits) add product reviews and highlight ratings add high-quality images and videos of your products link to related products Source: spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu Tip! One of the best SEO Shopify apps that you could use at this point is Product Reviews. It'll add SEO-friendly scores to all your product pages. 6.2. 3 Best Practices to Keyword Optimize Your Product Pages include your target keywords in the title tags, product descriptions, and meta descriptions remember to add it to your ALT text for images, as well make sure your keywords fit naturally into the text And, again, I can't stress enough the importance of original and unique product descriptions! Step 7: Add a Blog, Another Critical Step On Your SEO Shopify Checklist "If you’re seeing that Google is ranking more blog/article types of content for the keywords mapped to your Shopify store, your best bet is to go out and create that content yourself." (MOZ.com) Now, let's say that, as you're building the SEO for your Shopify store, you're trying to rank for quite a lot of informational keywords ("How to...", "What's the best...", etc.). You've already mapped them all to your store (i.e. to your product and your category pages) and... nothing. Your Shopify store's still on... page 10 in the searches for those keywords. But what about those stores that do rank high for the same keywords with informational intent? Is it their product/category pages that Google ranks? Or rather post from their blogs, that include those keywords? Mystery solved. If you want to have your store rank high for keywords with informational intent you need to add a blog to your Shopify site. It's there that you can write informational (and epic) content around those specific keywords. "Google is starting to prefer to rank more informational content above transactional. " (MOZ.com) 7.1. 4 Reasons Why You'd Want to Start Blogging on Your Shopify Store face it: only a ridiculously small percent of your website's visitors access it with a clear intention to buy. To increase chances to turn them from visitors to customers, you need to... educate them; to provide them with informational content for each stage in the buyer's journey once you write high-quality content on your blog you can send some of that authority to your product and category pages (which, otherwise, are so hard to link to); internal linking still is on of the best SEO tips for Shopify that you should make the most of blog posts make great tools for "pitching" your products (just make sure you target the right keywords) a blog is a perfect place on your website to add informational content that Google ranks high "But what should I blog about?" Glad you asked. Here are 3 simple ways that you can come up with some killer blog post topics: a. Ask yourself how your customers could get more value out of your product. For instance, you might be selling... hand blenders. Then, you could come up with recipes on "how to make creamy tomato soup in just 3 minutes" using a particular feature of your blenders. b. When you do your keyword research, make a list of all the user questions around those keywords. Then, go ahead and "exploit" them: write blog posts around the questions that your future customers have. c. Or, you can... brainstorm those questions. Ask yourself what inquiries and dilemmas related to your products your customers might be dealing with. For instance, you could be selling clothes made of a... revolutionary type of linen. Your potential customers could be wondering: "What makes it so revolutionary?". Or "Why is linen so expensive?" or "What's the difference between cotton and linen?" Step 8: Find and Fix all the Duplicate Content Issues Removing all duplicates is one of the crucial steps to take for improving the SEO of your Shopify store. It's also one of those issues common to Shopify stores in particular: 2 versions of your domain (with the same content) get indexed: the myshopify one and the custom domain one. Tip! When you add your custom domain to Shopify, make sure to check that all the traffic gets automatically redirected to your primary domain. How? Just go to Online Store > Domains and, if the message that you get there is “Traffic from your domains is not being redirected to this primary domain.”, click "Enable redirection". If it says “Traffic from all your domains redirects to this primary domain", then you're safe. But it's always best to check first. This way, you avoid the scenario where you're making it harder than necessary for Google to rank your Shopify store. For it won't know which of the 2 indexed versions is the "official" one. And speaking of the "duplicate content" danger that's greater in the case of Shopify websites, here are 2 ways that this eCommerce platform duplicates content. 8.1. It duplicates collection pages via pagination Meaning that it duplicates the first product category page in a series. You'll see “?page=1” included in the URL to the first page in that series. And this URL is highly likely to have the same content as the first, non-parameterized URL. So, when working on the SEO for your Shopify store, make sure to identify and to remove all the duplicate paginated URLs. 8.2. It duplicates product pages You'll have your product pages rendering at 2 different URL paths: the canonical one: /products/ the default, non-canonical one: /collections/.*/products/ Basically, Shopify creates several links for each category that a product is in. How to fix that? You can address this issue right in your theme's .liquid files. Just follow the step-by-step guide there to get it fixed. Step 9: Use an Alternative to Robots.txt File to Control Google's Crawl Why would you want to add this point to your SEO Shopify checklist? Because in Shopify you cannot adjust the robots.txt file. And, since you don't want Google to crawl the content on your website altogether, you'll need to look for alternatives. You could, for instance, consider canonical or "no follow" tags. Step 10: Build Links to Your Shopify Store It's sill is one of the most challenging parts when doing SEO for Shopify in 2020. But it's also one of the most powerful tactics, that can make or break an effective SEO strategy. Still, no need to get discouraged. There are a few simple and effective ways to get quality, relevant links to your Shopify store and boost its authority: guest blog on relevant websites (remember to add a link to your online store in your blog post) reach out to those websites that have already mentioned your brand (your products, your brand's name, etc.), but "overlooked" to include a link to your website, as well form partnerships with publishers or other eCommerce businesses in your industry find out who's linking to your competitors' stores and reach out to them Our Recommendation for You Is... ... to balance out your SEO efforts and your efforts to provide the best user experience. Your mail goal, as a Shopify store owner, should go beyond that of achieving a higher ranking: More sales is your ultimate goal. And for that, delivering the best user experience (a fast loading site, helpful image descriptions, useful content, etc.) is critical. So, in addition to these 10 points on your SEO Shopify checklist, be sure to add another one: Provide users with what they're looking for on your website. And make it easy for them to find it. The better their experience will be, the higher your chances to have your site pushed up in the rankings. Now, if you'd want to have your store bumped up in the search results, but without having to: get tangled up in link building tactics be on the lookout for duplicate content issues come up with a unique and keyword-optimized description for every single product in your inventory ... just shift the burden to us. Drop us a line and let's start building out the SEO strategy that'll set your Shopify store up for success! Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay ... Read more

Adriana Cacoveanu / Jul 17'2020

6 Best Serverless Plugins: How to Tailor the Serverless Framework to Your Project-Specific Needs

1. But First: What's the Core Functionality of the Serverless Framework?