Deployment Models Comparison

Serverless Inbox can be deployed in two ways. This document helps you choose the right approach for your situation.

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Decision Tree

graph TD
    Q1{"Are you a<br/>developer or<br/>DevOps engineer?"}

    Q1 -->|Yes| Q2{"Want to modify<br/>infrastructure?"}
    Q1 -->|No, just ops| CF["CloudFormation<br/>(template-only)"]

    Q2 -->|Yes| CDK["AWS CDK<br/>(most flexible)"]
    Q2 -->|No| CF

    CDK -->|Clone repo| P2["Full Control<br/>Customizable"]
    CF -->|Upload template| P3["Template-driven<br/>Repeatable"]

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Quick Comparison

Feature	CDK	CloudFormation
Complexity	Medium	Medium
Control	Full	Full
Customization	Excellent	Good
Learning Curve	Medium	Low
Time to Deploy	30-45 min	20-30 min
Best For	Developers	Operations
Multi-region	Easy	Manual
CI/CD Integration	Native	Native

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Option 1: AWS CDK (Developer-Friendly)

Best For

• Developers who want to understand and modify infrastructure
• Teams with CI/CD pipelines
• Projects requiring custom networking or advanced AWS features
• Organizations using Infrastructure-as-Code across multiple projects

What You Get

• Complete source code in TypeScript
• Full control over every AWS resource
• Can modify and extend the infrastructure
• Integration with your existing CDK stacks
• Version control of infrastructure changes

Prerequisites

• AWS Account with sufficient permissions
• AWS CLI v2
• Node.js 18+
• Git
• ~20 minutes

Next Steps

→ Deploy with CDK Tutorial

Pros

✅ Full infrastructure visibility and control
✅ Easy to modify and test changes
✅ Integrates with team CI/CD workflows
✅ Code review process for infrastructure changes
✅ Reproducible deployments via version control

Cons

❌ Requires understanding of CDK
❌ Longer initial setup
❌ More things that can go wrong in dev environment

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Option 2: CloudFormation (Template-Only)

Best For

• Operations teams comfortable with AWS templates
• Organizations with CloudFormation policies
• When you want infrastructure control without learning CDK
• Enterprises requiring template auditing and approval

What You Get

• Pre-built CloudFormation templates (YAML/JSON)
• Upload to AWS CloudFormation console
• Creates identical infrastructure to CDK option
• Repeatable, version-controlled deployments
• Suitable for multi-region and multi-account rollouts

Prerequisites

• AWS Account with sufficient permissions
• AWS CloudFormation console access
• Understanding of CloudFormation basics
• ~15 minutes

How It Works

1. Download CloudFormation template
2. Upload to CloudFormation console
3. Specify parameters (region, instance sizes, etc.)
4. Review and deploy
5. Monitor stack creation in console

Next Steps

→ Deploy with CloudFormation Tutorial (coming soon)

Pros

✅ No coding required
✅ Standard AWS deployment mechanism
✅ Works with enterprise approval workflows
✅ Can be stored in S3 for team access
✅ Familiar to ops teams

Cons

❌ Template is read-only (can’t easily customize)
❌ Less flexible than CDK
❌ Harder to debug issues
❌ Changes require uploading new template

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Comparison: Real-World Scenario

Scenario: You’re evaluating Serverless Inbox and need to demo it in a week.

Approach	Timeline	Effort	Customization
CloudFormation	Day 1	1-2 hours	Edit template, redeploy
CDK	Day 1-2	2-3 hours	Full control, modify code

Best choice for this scenario: CloudFormation (fastest path to a working system)

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Scenario: You’re building a production deployment with custom networking.

Approach	Timeline	Effort	Customization

| CloudFormation | Day 2-3 | 3 hours | Can be done but painful | | CDK | Day 1-2 | 4 hours | Easy, version-controlled |

Best choice for this scenario: AWS CDK (flexibility is worth the time)

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After Deployment

Regardless of which model you choose, next steps are identical:

1. Complete Initial Setup - Verify deployment and configure your account
2. Configure Email Identity - Add domain and verify with SES
3. Manage Administrators - Grant access to colleagues

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Still Unsure?

Ask yourself:

• “Do I need to modify infrastructure later?” → CDK
• “Will ops teams need template auditing?” → CloudFormation
• “I want the fastest path to production” → CloudFormation (~20-30 min)

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See Also

• System Architecture - What you’re deploying
• Security Model - Authentication approaches

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Last tested: March 2026