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I am a web developer, cloud solutions architect, and software developer. I write about my project on medium, StackOverflow, digitalspeed.com.ng. https://linkedin.com/in/anorue-wilson
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I'm actually working on a post about Amplify myself right now. However, I'm moving off of it. Honestly, as cool as Amplify seems it does have some drawbacks. I used it for building and hosting my blog logarithmicspirals.com for over a year.
Here are the strengths I see:
Easy integration with AWS services.
Easy integration with external Git repos.
Decent level of control over headers.
Support for modern frontend frameworks.
DNS management is a breeze compared to setting up Route 53.
Drawbacks:
Node 18 isn't supported out-of-the-box for building the frontend. You have to use a custom build image.
It seems there's some problems with caching in CloudFront when you use Amplify versus setting up CloudFront from scratch. This video youtube.com/watch?v=BjjnDu0KRfE goes more in depth on that.
Performance for one's frontend on Amplify just doesn't seem good. By performance I mean page load times. In my upcoming blog post, I'll talk more about this, but both CloudFront and Cloudflare offer way better performance for caching and page load times.
For anyone looking at Amplify, I have to say check out Cloudflare Pages also. Cloudflare has quite a few services which compete with AWS.
As an aside, if one wants to stay on AWS, SST has some advantages over Amplify. There's more control and you can keep your code for multiple services in one repo like you can with Amplify.
Glad to see more work going into the service though. Perhaps I'll circle back in the future and give it another try 🙂.
Thanks for sharing this feedback. I'm Matt on the Amplify product team. Any chance you could DM me to hop on a quick feedback call? I wanted to call a few things out:
2-3) We have an on-going initiative to improve caching with CloudFront. This work will be completed in a few weeks and should address the points you brought up. Curious to hear about your architecture to understand page load time -- this is another big investment area where we have ongoing work.
No worries! yeah, i'd be curious to get your take on our caching update. Keep an eye on our Twitter, Blog or Discord . Should be in just a few weeks we announce them.
Thanks! I've enjoyed using Amplify overall, so I'm looking forward to these updates 🙂. I'll have to circle back and do some more in depth comparisons once the updates are available 👍.
It's really misleading to say "developing locally" when it actually requires spinning up an entire remote cloud environment. Developing locally means on the developer's machine, not developing with a remote cloud sandbox backend.
Ali , you definitely changed my life! I was searching for a tutorial on creating forms in amplify studio and deploying them on my first WebApp on the front-end. *Thanks for your YouTube video I did it ! *
I am a web developer, cloud solutions architect, and software developer. I write about my project on medium, StackOverflow, digitalspeed.com.ng. https://linkedin.com/in/anorue-wilson
Hey Wilson, you can build a framework adapter for hosting Angular SSR apps with Amplify -- it'll be more work than the ones there are already adapters for, but it's possible!
Congrats on the launch!
Very good Congratulations
This looks amazing! Definitely one I'll be adding to Dev Pages, to help developers build amazing things 🚀
Congratulations y'all!
Wow, that's massive 👍
Woohoo
Much good my friend!👍
Very useful, I'm working with Amplify frequently so this will improve how I use Amplify and take advantage of the new features.
Wow 🔥
Nice one
I'm actually working on a post about Amplify myself right now. However, I'm moving off of it. Honestly, as cool as Amplify seems it does have some drawbacks. I used it for building and hosting my blog logarithmicspirals.com for over a year.
Here are the strengths I see:
Drawbacks:
For anyone looking at Amplify, I have to say check out Cloudflare Pages also. Cloudflare has quite a few services which compete with AWS.
As an aside, if one wants to stay on AWS, SST has some advantages over Amplify. There's more control and you can keep your code for multiple services in one repo like you can with Amplify.
Glad to see more work going into the service though. Perhaps I'll circle back in the future and give it another try 🙂.
Hi --
Thanks for sharing this feedback. I'm Matt on the Amplify product team. Any chance you could DM me to hop on a quick feedback call? I wanted to call a few things out:
1) We updated our default build image to support Node 18 plus other latest version back in February.
2-3) We have an on-going initiative to improve caching with CloudFront. This work will be completed in a few weeks and should address the points you brought up. Curious to hear about your architecture to understand page load time -- this is another big investment area where we have ongoing work.
Let me know if you'd be open to chat!
Matt A
@mauerbac
Hey @mauerbac, thanks for replying! Unfortunately, I don't think I have time for a feedback call, but I appreciate your call outs.
What would be a good place to keep an eye out for the caching updates?
No worries! yeah, i'd be curious to get your take on our caching update. Keep an eye on our Twitter, Blog or Discord . Should be in just a few weeks we announce them.
Thanks! I've enjoyed using Amplify overall, so I'm looking forward to these updates 🙂. I'll have to circle back and do some more in depth comparisons once the updates are available 👍.
It's really misleading to say "developing locally" when it actually requires spinning up an entire remote cloud environment. Developing locally means on the developer's machine, not developing with a remote cloud sandbox backend.
Ali , you definitely changed my life! I was searching for a tutorial on creating forms in amplify studio and deploying them on my first WebApp on the front-end. *Thanks for your YouTube video I did it ! *
Can I use Amplify to host server side rendered apps built with Angular?
Hey Wilson, you can build a framework adapter for hosting Angular SSR apps with Amplify -- it'll be more work than the ones there are already adapters for, but it's possible!
Cool
This looks new to me.
Good _