Val Town Has a Free API — Write and Deploy Serverless Functions in Your Browser

What if you could write a serverless function in your browser, share it with a URL, and it ran on the edge — without any deployment?

Val Town is a social coding platform where every function is instantly deployed. Write code, save it, it is live.

Why Val Town

• Instant deployment — save your code, it is live at a URL
• Social coding — discover, fork, and remix other people's functions
• Built-in storage — SQLite database available in every val
• Scheduled runs — cron built in
• Email handling — receive and process emails via code
• Free tier — unlimited public vals, scheduled runs

Quick Start

// Create an HTTP endpoint — instantly live
export default function(req: Request): Response {
  return Response.json({
    message: "Hello from Val Town!",
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
  });
}

Save it, and it is deployed at https://username-functionname.val.run.

Scheduled Functions

// Runs on a schedule — set cron in the Val Town UI
export default async function() {
  const res = await fetch("https://api.github.com/repos/denoland/deno");
  const data = await res.json();

  if (data.stargazers_count > 100000) {
    await email({ to: "[e-mail]", subject: "Deno hit 100K stars!" });
  }
}

Built-in SQLite

import { sqlite } from "https://esm.town/v/std/sqlite";

// Create table
await sqlite.execute("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS visits (url TEXT, count INTEGER)");

// Update
await sqlite.execute(
  "INSERT INTO visits (url, count) VALUES (?, 1) ON CONFLICT(url) DO UPDATE SET count = count + 1",
  [request.url]
);

Real Use Case

A developer needed to monitor a website for price changes and get notified. Instead of setting up a server, cron job, and notification system — they wrote 15 lines in Val Town. The val checks the price every hour and sends an email if it changes. Took 5 minutes, costs nothing.

When to Use Val Town

• Quick scripts and automations
• Webhook handlers and API endpoints
• Monitoring and notification bots
• Prototyping ideas without infrastructure

Get Started

Visit val.town — free tier, no setup, write code and it is live.

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Need custom data pipelines or scraping solutions? Check out my Apify actors or email me at [e-mail] for custom solutions.