Step functions is easy to use and very effective at tying lambda functions together into a workflow. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Dynamic parallel tasks are not possible to designate within step functions. They either have to be defined in the code, using some fancy logic to kind of make it look dynamic or using some external services that can get complicated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Step Functions allow you to run complex stateful processes in a serverless or hybrid serverless environment. It has enabled vast cost savings at our company and is now one of the core foundations of our architecture. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Before re:Invent 2018 you had to build really simple functions to send pieces of the Step Function state to things like SNS and SQS, or select data from DynamoDB. These things are now possible as Step Function service integrations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have used AWS Step functions in conjuction with AWS lambda or serverless projects. I have used them in two use cases:

1. They make running complex serverless projects that have to run either sequentially or in parallel really easy

2. You can also use step functions to optimize a serverless code in terms of the RAM required or run time etc

In addition to the above, it is really a cheap service and although I am not using it right now but have used it extensively in my previous projects Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only downside I have faced is debugging the service. For example, if you are running 5 lambda functions and one of them has an error, the output will just be "Unknown" which doesn't help much. You'd have to run the functions individually to check for error. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is a software that I have been using for a long time now. AWS Step Functions is very effective in improving the performance of an operating system or improving the speed with which the programs in general run on our computer Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only thing I do not like is that now the updater runs in the background. But in operation I have not had any problems. It is the best maintenance tool that is used. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

AWS Step Functions was very well documented, and I had no trouble starting it up and then using it. It was very easy to integrate with other services like Lambda, CloudWatch, and Secrets Manager. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Debugging is challenging: for instance, if Lambda functions timed out, only a "Lambda Unknown" error is displayed. This is not documented, and I had to figure this out on my own. Also, there was no way to test this locally, so I had to upload my program online and then test it out there. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to loop thru the lambdas and make decisions based on various parameters gives you much control Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There are some limitations as to what step functions can do, but I am sure they can be improved over time Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

easy to coordinate the components of distributed applications and microservices using visual workflows. Building applications from individual components that each perform a discrete function lets you scale and change applications quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If the user doesn't verify then account in 30 minutes, you will delete his data from your database, or if user verified his account then you send him a welcome message. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

They are really simple to create, manage workflow in a really easy way and you can create a nice deployment process around it, the way how you can create and language usage is incredible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Still need to refine more for a better usage and resiliency, that is the little downsize but the introduction helps expedite the serverless development Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Step functions are best suited when you have automated deployment of your code. It can be used to submit jobs from a Jenkins server for example. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Step functions can only submit one spark streaming job in an EMR. It should be enhanced to be able to submit multiple spark streaming jobs in the same EMR in parallel. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The way amazon made the serverless functions workflows using step functions is great. It makes to create simple to complex workflows by tying multiple serverless functions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is a learning curve to get over it and also working with declarative language is tricky yet times. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.