For things like simple Sinatra APIs, a light-weight alternative is https://github.com/logandk/serverless-rack (a plugin for https://serverless.com, I'm the maintainer.)
To get a large Rails app operational on Lambda, Jets is the way to go.
To get a large Rails app operational on Lambda, Jets is the way to go.
* Paying only for compute time/requests, if the API is not being accessed for a period of time, it's free - on a regular instance, you'd be paying for idle time
* Automatic scaling
* Simple deployment
The downsides include:
* Irregular response times due to cold containers
* Slower request/response cycle due to overhead in Lambda + API Gateway