Why Edge Functions?
Traditional serverless functions run in a single region. Edge functions deploy globally, executing code closest to your users. For latency-sensitive applications — payments, auth, real-time features — this difference is significant.
Architecture Patterns
Edge functions excel at request transformation, authentication middleware, webhook processing, and API orchestration. They're not ideal for long-running computations or heavy database operations.
Building with Deno
Supabase Edge Functions run on Deno, which means TypeScript-first development, built-in security sandboxing, and access to web-standard APIs. The learning curve from Node.js is minimal.
Deployment & Monitoring
Deploy with a single CLI command. Use structured logging for observability. Set up alerts on execution time and error rates. Edge functions should be stateless — use your database for persistence.