It would be nice if Glitch could run serverless functions. Basically, serverless functions enable you to backend code (like Express & Node.js) without the hassle of setting up or maintaining servers. You only to write the code for the backend, the cloud provider runs the server and dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Basically, it’s like Express (you can run Express in serverless functions). Serverless functions usually run on AWS Lambda, and you only to pay for the resources you use. It is also not very expensive.
It’s also scalable, one server for multiple functions. The only issue would be sharing the filesystem and limiting memory usage for a single function
That’s how I would describe Glitch already. I click “new project,” go into a .js file and start typing app.route('/dosomething', ...); and never have to set up or maintain a server.
Glitch has talked about how they already do this, with project containers spun up and down as needed. It sounds a lot like how AWS Lambda does things, where they start up a function when a request comes in and reclaim the resources if it’s idle for a while.
And the starter code you get when you create a new project specifically uses Express.