OpenFaaS is developed by a small team of volunteers, we would love to know how you’re using the project and what problems you are solving.

In this post I’ll outline five key ways that you can use to share your OpenFaaS story. You’ll also learn how to support the project through helping the community understand your use-case and what kind of problems you are solving.

1. Make first contact - early!

Many end-users start by writing an email to alex@openfaas.com to tell me specifically about how they’re using the project in production. Oftentimes this is after months of use, learning and problem-solving.

You can save yourselves a lot of time and also become part of a rewarding community by making first contact early, either when you find out about the project and have questions, or when you start building a PoC.

If you’re an expert user of OpenFaaS, it can be tempting to work around any issues that you see, or to make your own patches. After all, you do have a business to run, however Open Source is sustained by contributions from its users and its community. Please consider searching or raising an issue if you are encountering friction or have questions.

So rather than deferring to third-party blog posts, myths or out-dated content, I’m inviting you to come directly to the source.

Wanting to get updates, blogs and to connect with other professional users? Join our LinkedIn Group - #TeamServerless.

2. Join the End-user community

Joining the end-user community is free, and your company can optionally have their logo listed on the OpenFaaS homepage and documentation site. This is a great way to get behind the developers of the project and to show you are a proud user of OpenFaaS.

Some of our end-user community in July 2019

In the 2019 Project Update I outlined the traction, production usage and adoption of OpenFaaS.

  • Over 17.8k GitHub stars
  • Over 210 contributors
  • A projection of 350 community blog posts by 2019

Note: you should seek permission from your manager before nominating your company or employer to join the end-user community.

Benefits:

  • brand awareness and positioning on openfaas.com (optional)
  • help with conference papers / CfPs
  • access to a private Slack end-users channel

Should you need more support than the Slack community can provide, then we also provide a commercial support and consulting services through OpenFaaS Ltd. Email: sales@openfaas.com for more on how to begin.

3. Submit a conference paper

We were thrilled to see 6 sessions accepted for KubeCon, Barcelona along with some top quality video recordings uploaded after the event.

  • Watch past talks for inspiration

Each talk link has a video uploaded that you can watch - from LivePerson, to BT to Contiamo: OpenFaaS @ KubeCon Barcelona

  • Think about what problems you are solving

No matter how big or small, exciting or boring - real-world usage of OpenFaaS is a popular topic at events like KubeCon, Dockercon and many meet-ups around the world. A great place to start is by putting together a diagram or a few paragraphs on what problems you’ve been able to solve and what kind of value you can derive from the project.

Note: The deadline to submit a paper is 12th July 2019.

The CfP deadline for KubeCon, San Diego is coming up fast. If you would like help, then please join Slack and let us know, or email me with the address given above. Subject to availability, we will help you draft, write and submit your paper. Once accepted, we can provide 1:1 feedback on the talk over Zoom.

See also: CfP / call for proposals

  • Case-study blog post

A blog post outlining your case-study or architecture can make for a great way to share and promote your work.

Here’s a post from IconScout who use OpenFaaS to resize, process and distribute stock photography and icons: How to resize your images on-the-fly

4. Sponsor the website

You can become a website sponsor and have your logo placed on openfaas.com from as little as 500 USD / mo for the gold tier (small logo), or 1500 USD / mo for a normal size logo. This is something that can be invoiced via OpenFaaS Ltd, and you can even put it through your marketing department.

  • Why sponsor the website?

OpenFaaS has no commercial sponsors or funding from corporations, we rely solely on community volunteers and the lead maintainer.

  • Connect your brand to one of the fastest growing developer-communities
  • Support, reduce risk and sustain the long-term development of the project
  • Give back in an actionable way, that your finance department can sign-off on

5. Subscribe to insider updates

You can subscribe to insider updates from the founder and lead maintainer Alex Ellis through an individual GitHub Sponsorship starting from 5 USD / mo.

Here are some of the benefits of being an insider:

  • early-access to new features
  • videos, blogs and other online-resources
  • inside view of the roadmap
  • community news and events

Think of it like buying me a coffee. Cheers!

GitHub have committed to match the first 5000 USD of contributions made through their program.

Become an insider today.

Wrapping up

However you are using OpenFaaS, and at whatever stage of the journey, the community would love to hear from you.

Alex Ellis

Founder of @openfaas.