SST Has a Free Framework That Makes Deploying to AWS Actually Simple

#sst #aws #serverless #typescript

AWS has 200+ services and deploying a simple app takes 3 days of YAML. SST wraps AWS in TypeScript components — deploy a Next.js app, API, database, and cron jobs with a few lines of code.

What SST Gives You for Free

TypeScript infrastructure — define AWS resources in code
Live Lambda Dev — edit functions, see changes in real-time
Console — web dashboard for your AWS resources
Full-stack — frontend + API + database + cron in one project
Components — high-level abstractions for common patterns
No lock-in — generates standard CloudFormation

Quick Start

npx sst@latest init
npx sst dev

Deploy a Next.js App

// sst.config.ts
export default $config({
  app(input) {
    return { name: 'my-app', region: 'us-east-1' };
  },
  async run() {
    new sst.aws.Nextjs('Web');
  }
});

Run npx sst deploy — your Next.js app is on AWS with CloudFront CDN.

Full-Stack Example

// sst.config.ts
export default $config({
  app(input) {
    return { name: 'my-saas', region: 'us-east-1' };
  },
  async run() {
    // Database
    const db = new sst.aws.Postgres('Database');

    // API
    const api = new sst.aws.ApiGatewayV2('Api');
    api.route('GET /users', 'packages/functions/src/users.list');
    api.route('POST /users', 'packages/functions/src/users.create');

    // Cron job
    new sst.aws.Cron('DailyReport', {
      schedule: 'rate(1 day)',
      job: 'packages/functions/src/report.handler'
    });

    // Frontend
    new sst.aws.Nextjs('Web', {
      environment: {
        NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL: api.url
      }
    });

    // Link resources
    api.link(db);
  }
});

Lambda Functions

// packages/functions/src/users.ts
import { Resource } from 'sst';
import { db } from './db';

export async function list() {
  const users = await db.select().from(usersTable);
  return { statusCode: 200, body: JSON.stringify(users) };
}

export async function create(event) {
  const body = JSON.parse(event.body);
  const user = await db.insert(usersTable).values(body);
  return { statusCode: 201, body: JSON.stringify(user) };
}

Live Lambda Dev (The Killer Feature)

npx sst dev

Edit your Lambda function → save → changes are live in <1 second. No redeploy. Set breakpoints in VS Code.

SST vs Serverless Framework vs CDK vs SAM

Feature	SST	Serverless Framework	CDK	SAM
Language	TypeScript	YAML	TypeScript	YAML
Live dev	Yes (instant)	No	No	No
Console	Beautiful	Basic	None	None
Full-stack	Yes	API only	Yes	API only
Learning curve	Low	Low	High	Medium
Components	High-level	Plugins	L2 constructs	None

The Verdict

SST makes AWS accessible to TypeScript developers. High-level components for common patterns, live Lambda development, and a beautiful console. If you're deploying to AWS, SST is the modern way.

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