# Serverless vs traditional hosting: event-site decision worksheet

Compare the same attendee journeys and demand scenario. Static CDN delivery, functions and always-running servers can coexist; this is not a forced all-or-nothing choice.

**Event / edition:** [ ]  **Comparison owner / date:** [ ]  **Candidate providers and plans:** [ ]

## Workload inventory

| Attendee or operator path | Normal demand and peak | Processing duration | Data store / third party | Failure impact | Candidate pattern |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Public schedule and venue page | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | CDN / function / server |
| Registration and sign-in | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Checkout redirect and callback | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Ticket verification or download | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Webhooks, images, email and reports | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |

## Quote comparison: same workload and region

| Cost or capacity input | Serverless option | Always-running server option | Evidence / quote link |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Compute / instance and idle baseline | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Requests, API gateway and execution duration | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| CDN, data transfer and image delivery | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Database, connection and storage limits | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Logs, monitoring, backup and support | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Peak concurrency or throughput limit | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Time to add capacity and behavior at limit | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
| Team effort to patch, deploy, monitor and restore | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |

**On-sale scenario and assumptions:** [measured visits, registration requests, duration, geographic mix, external-provider limits].

**Decision:** [ ]  **Unresolved constraints:** [ ]  **Owner / review date:** [ ]

**Acceptance check:** Measure public page, registration, checkout handoff and confirmation under the planned peak. Record error rate, response time and throttling. A provider's automatic scaling claim does not test downstream limits.

Sources: [AWS Lambda concurrency](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/lambda-concurrency.html) and [EC2 billing models](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/instance-purchasing-options.html).