Editorial take
Why it stands out
SST is most compelling when a team wants Vercel-like speed but needs apps to live in its own AWS account. The decision is as much about cloud ownership and IAM comfort as it is about framework DX.
Loading
Tool profile
Full-stack application framework for building and deploying apps on your own AWS infrastructure.
AWS full-stack apps
SST is a full-stack application framework for teams that want modern developer ergonomics while still deploying to infrastructure they own, especially AWS. It lets developers define app resources in code, use local development workflows, connect frontend and backend pieces, deploy through their cloud account, and optionally use the SST Console for logs, issues, resource views, updates, and autodeploy.
The main reason to choose SST is ownership without giving up speed. It is not a traditional hosted platform where your app lives inside someone else's abstraction. It is closer to a developer-friendly control layer over real cloud resources. That makes it powerful for teams with AWS comfort, but it also means cloud permissions, resource count, IAM, and provider costs remain part of the stack decision.
Quick fit
Editorial take
SST is most compelling when a team wants Vercel-like speed but needs apps to live in its own AWS account. The decision is as much about cloud ownership and IAM comfort as it is about framework DX.
What it does well
Primary use cases
Fit notes
Compare with
Pressure-test this pick against nearby alternatives.
Apache Kafka
Free planEvent streaming and event-driven architectures
Open-source distributed event streaming platform for high-throughput pipelines, pub/sub, and stream-processing ecosystems.
Choose Kafka when replayable event streams and ecosystem breadth matter more than the lightest possible operational footprint.
Pricing snapshot
SST's framework can be used without the Console. The optional SST Console has a free tier for workspaces with 350 active resources or fewer, then charges $0.086 per active resource for the first 2,000 resources and $0.032 per active resource above 2,000; volume pricing is available by contact.
Arcjet
Free planApplication runtime security
Runtime security toolkit for modern applications and AI systems that helps teams enforce quotas, block bots, prevent prompt abuse, and ship app-level protections in code.
Closer to application-runtime security and abuse-prevention tooling than to classic perimeter appliances.
