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When Serverless Fails: Unkey's 6x Performance Migration to Containers
Why did an API key management platform abandon edge serverless for stateful containers? Unkey hit 30ms p99 cache latency when they needed sub-10ms—so they rebuilt everything on AWS Fargate. This episode covers the technical decision-making framework for choosing between serverless and containers, plus a deep dive into Kubernetes 1.35's new structured z-pages for debugging.
In This Episode:
- The serverless constraint: stateless = network request for every cache read
- Unkey's complexity tax: Workers, Durable Objects, Queues, custom proxies
- The container solution: Fargate + Global Accelerator = 6x performance
- Decision framework: latency targets, data hotness, complexity budget
- K8s 1.35 z-pages: JSON structured responses for compliance automation
Key Statistics:
- 30ms p99 cache latency before migration (target: <10ms)
- 6x performance improvement after moving to containers
- Self-hosting unlocked as unexpected bonus
New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe to stay current on platform engineering.
Links:
Full show notes: https://platformengineeringplaybook.com/podcasts/00077-unkey-serverless-containers-migration
Contribute: Open a PR on GitHub
View all episodes
By vibesreWhy did an API key management platform abandon edge serverless for stateful containers? Unkey hit 30ms p99 cache latency when they needed sub-10ms—so they rebuilt everything on AWS Fargate. This episode covers the technical decision-making framework for choosing between serverless and containers, plus a deep dive into Kubernetes 1.35's new structured z-pages for debugging.
In This Episode:
- The serverless constraint: stateless = network request for every cache read
- Unkey's complexity tax: Workers, Durable Objects, Queues, custom proxies
- The container solution: Fargate + Global Accelerator = 6x performance
- Decision framework: latency targets, data hotness, complexity budget
- K8s 1.35 z-pages: JSON structured responses for compliance automation
Key Statistics:
- 30ms p99 cache latency before migration (target: <10ms)
- 6x performance improvement after moving to containers
- Self-hosting unlocked as unexpected bonus
New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe to stay current on platform engineering.
Links:
Full show notes: https://platformengineeringplaybook.com/podcasts/00077-unkey-serverless-containers-migration
Contribute: Open a PR on GitHub