New Kids: An Architecture and Performance Investigation of Second-Generation Serverless Platforms

2026-04-17

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of systematic understanding regarding the architectural characteristics and performance implications of second-generation serverless platforms, particularly concerning lightweight isolation and edge deployment. It presents the first clear definition of second-generation platform features and systematically evaluates their differences from first-generation platforms in terms of latency, cold starts, and execution environments. Through microbenchmarks, over 38 million function invocations, and comparative analysis of publicly available architectural details, the work demonstrates that second-generation platforms reduce hot-path request latency from approximately 40 ms to 10 ms and render cold starts nearly negligible, substantially improving responsiveness. However, these gains come at the cost of reduced flexibility in execution environments, revealing a new performance–functionality trade-off inherent in modern serverless architectures.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Learning on the Edge & Model Compression
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Planning with Language Models
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Responsible Web: Sustainability and climate impact of web technologies
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

With the ever-increasing usage of serverless computing in both industry and academia, it is essential to understand the mechanisms that power the underlying platforms. As serverless is more than ten years old, there are different platforms with vastly different approaches. We show that, next to the traditional and popular platforms, a second generation of serverless platform has emerged. While first-generation platforms are based on containerized, centralized execution, the new generation leverages lightweight isolates and edge deployment. This evolution reduces warm request latency from approximately 40 ms to around 10 ms and reduces cold starts to an afterthought, but limits the execution environment. In this paper, we gather and analyze all publicly available information to provide detailed insights into the underlying architecture of seven platforms and then run a microbenchmark-based evaluation totaling more than 38 million function calls to gain a deeper understanding their performance.

Problem

• serverless computing
• second-generation platforms
• architecture analysis
• performance evaluation
• function-as-a-service

Innovation

• second-generation serverless
• lightweight isolates
• edge deployment
• cold start reduction
• microbenchmark evaluation