● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportMedium impact1 positive
Netlify Edge Functions now run on MicroVMs, achieving 5x speed improvement
Key points
- Netlify Edge Functions moved to MicroVMs in its edge network.
- Median latency decreased from 25-40ms to 5-6ms.
- P99 invocations are 47.4% faster.
- The change improves security and reliability.
Infrastructure Re-architecture
Netlify has rebuilt the infrastructure powering its Edge Functions. Previously, requests were handled by a hosted execution service. The new architecture now runs Edge Functions on MicroVMs directly within Netlify's own edge network, a collaboration that included the team at Unikraft.
Performance Improvements
This infrastructure shift has led to significant performance gains. Median latency for warm invocations has decreased by approximately 5x, from 25-40ms to 5-6ms. Additionally, p99 invocations are now 47.4% faster, and edge function log delivery is also 5x faster. The system maintains 99.998% availability.
Cold invocations, which occur on about 1.2% of requests when a region has not previously seen a request, take approximately 9ms on average to fetch necessary images before execution.
Impact on Developers and Operations
The method for writing or using Edge Functions remains unchanged for developers, supporting URL imports, npm packages, Node built-ins, and netlify.toml declarations. The underlying change provides a faster and more resilient platform without requiring code modifications.
This re-architecture also contributes to improved security and reliability, opening up more possibilities for running complex compute tasks at the edge.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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Reporting from
Netlify has re-architected its Edge Functions infrastructure to run on MicroVMs within its edge network, replacing a hosted execution service. This change results in a 5x speed improvement at median latency, reducing it from 25-40ms to 5-6ms, and enhances security and reliability for edge computing.