Begin Review and Features

Written by Thom Krupa

Last update: 6/7/2024

Feature		Begin
Infrastructure What runs under-the-hood.		AWS
Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
Continuous deployment Imagine an automatic update system for your website. This feature automatically deploys any changes you make to your code (usually from Git) to your live website.
Automated builds from Git An easy integration with popular Git repository hostings like Github, GitLab and Bitbucket.
Instant rollbacks to any version Easy way to promote any previous build to production without the need to revert commits or data changes.
Site previews for every push New build with a unique URL for every commit and pull request.
Compatible with all Static Site Generators
Notifications Events triggered on successful, canceled, or failed build.		Slack
Team Management Create team account and invite your teammates to the project.
Custom domains Bring your own domain and connect to the project.
Automatic HTTPS SSL certificate generated automatically.
Rewrites & Redirects HTTP 301 or 302 redirects from one URL to another. Rewrites work similar to reverse proxy and allow to send user to different URL without modifying the original URL.
Password Protection An easy way to restrict access to the website for users who don't have password. Useful if you work on a new site and want to keep it in secret.
Skew Protection Skew Protection ensures client and server versions stay synchronized during deployments, preventing compatibility issues.
Free Tier
Websites Number of projects you can have in Free Tier on one account.		5
Build Minutes The amount of time your build scripts can run per month.		N/A
Concurrent builds How many builds can be run at the same time?		N/A
Bandwidth The amount of data that is transferred to or from the CDN.		N/A
Team Members The number of users (team members) that can be added to the CMS.		1
Build Time Per Deployment Build have to finish within the limited time. If not it will fail due to timeout.		N/A
Build Memory Limit (in MiB) The amount of memory that is allocated by system to build process. Some operations like image processing are expensive and might require more memory. For Node.js it is `max-old-space-size` setting.		N/A
Paid Plans
Max team members before switch to custom pricing		Unlimited
Git contributors have to be Team Members In order to triger build, Git contributor has to be a paid team member.
Serverless
Serverless Functions (API) Small pieces of code that run on-demand without managing servers, typically used for API endpoints.		JavaScript
Edge Functions Serverless functions that run closer to the user, reducing latency and improving performance.
Background Functions Code that runs in the background on the platform to perform tasks that don't require immediate user interaction.
CRON Jobs Schedule tasks to run automatically at specific times or intervals. Useful for automating repetitive website maintenance tasks.		Schedule functions
Developer Experience
CLI Command Line Interface tools that allow developers to perform tasks and manage the tool via the command line.
Extensions Additional plugins or add-ons that can enhance the functionality of the platform.
Environment Variables Secret configuration settings for your website that change based on where it's deployed (dev, staging, production).		N/A
Build Logs Track the progress and results of website builds for troubleshooting
Build Canceling Ability to stop a build process that is currently running. This frees up resources and lets you make changes to your website faster by stopping builds you don't need anymore.
Platform Built-in Products
Analytics Tools for tracking and analyzing website traffic.
Authentication Services for managing user logins and authentication.
Database Managed database services.		Begin Data
Asset Optimizations Tools for optimizing images, CSS, JS, etc.
A/B Testing Lets you test different versions of your site by directing traffic to each variant, helping you optimize user experience based on performance metrics.
Form Handling Services for managing form submissions.
Data Storage Solutions for storing and managing data.		N/A
Push Notifications This allows your website to send real-time alerts or updates to visitors who have opted-in.
Machine Learning
Security & Compliance Offerings
Two-factor authentication Adds an extra layer of security when logging in.		N/A
Team Logs Tracks user activity within the platform for better accountability.
SOC2 Service Organization Control 2 compliance for managing customer data.		N/A
ISO27001 International standard for information security management.		N/A
GDPR Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation for handling personal data.
Sustainability
Carbon Neutral		N/A
Carbon-free Energy		N/A
Integrations
Integrations Connecting your deployment platform with external services like headless content, commerce, databases, and more.		N/A
Custom build-system integrations Allows you to connect your own build tools and processes with the deployment platform.		N/A
Support with self-hosted instances of git		N/A
API mesh API Mesh allows you to combine multiple APIs into a single unified API, simplifying data fetching and integration across different services and backends.		N/A
Deploy Preview feedback integrations Enables team members and stakeholders to comment directly on preview deployments.		N/A
Edge Functions integrations		N/A
High Performance Build Memory and CPU		N/A
Native Build Plugins		N/A

Brian Leroux and Ryan Block founded Begin in 2015. At first, it was supposed to be a chat-based tasking product. That product failed. Begin pivoted to serverless tooling and eventually created a full cloud platform for serverless functions and static sites.

Staging and production environments

You can only deploy an app to production if it builds in a staging environment. This means it will automatically build the main git branch as you deploy changes. Unfortunately, Begin doesn't build other branches nor pull requests.

If you click the "Deploy to Production" button, you will see a popup with an optional field for release notes. It's cool, but if you already use Github releases or Pull Requests, that might be a bit odd and unnecessary step for you.

Tools like Netlify and Vercel got us used to each commit's unique preview URL on every branch and pull request. That removes the staging environment since everything that is not production is a test or staging environment.

Run the app on your own AWS account

Begin gives you an option to export your app and run it directly on the AWS platform. It uses the Architect framework to make deployment easier.

Conclusion

Begin is a straightforward serverless platform. It's not perfect and misses a few things that most other tools have out of the box. The main advantage for sure is the zero lock-ins. The ability you can eject and use Arc makes it a great choice for developers who eventually want to