This Week in Devtools

🚀 Launch of the Week: Vercel Fluid Compute

Vercel, the front-end PaaS announced Fluid, a new approach to compute that "evolves beyond serverless, trading single-invocation functions for high-performance mini-servers." Vercel claims that customers who switched to Fluid compute from traditional Vercel functions have seen a reduction of costs by up to 85%.

I confess - I watched the launch but I still don't completely understand the mechanism behind Fluid. However, the video is well produced, the blog post seems thorough, they have proof from real users, and switching over is easy.

There's a lot to learn from Vercel here. This launch is a masterclass in getting adoption for an innovative new product, when the market is likely skeptical of your claims.

🏆 Enterprise Watch: Timescale

Timescale, the Postgres database is now on the AWS Marketplace. Listing your product on AWS is drudgery, but it helps speed up the procurement process for large customers.

As a reward for doing the blocking and tackling required to get through the AWS approval process, Timescale gets this week's Enterprise Watch trophy 🏆.

🤝 Partnership Watch: Directus + Resend

Directus, the headless CMS released a Resend integration for transactional email. This integration "provides a comprehensive interface for sending emails, managing domains, API keys, audiences, and contacts, all within your Directus environment."

🆕 More News

PostHog's LLM Observability

Posthog, the product analytics platform launched LLM observability. This seems like a vertical expansion of their product, and they're entering a crowded space. Datadog rolled out similar features late last year. And Langchain has a purpose built tool for LLM observability.

So I see this as a necessary catch-up for Posthog that keeps users in their product, rather than a differentiated feature.

Prisma's Postgres Database Service

Prisma, the database ORM launched their own Postgres database service. Prisma promises a generous free tier and no cold starts for their serverless database. During the launch Prisma addressed the elephant in the room (pun! 🐘) and released a video with the hook "Do we really need another Postgres database?"

Prisma is walking a tightrope here. They now compete with their best partners. I'll keep a close watch on this space.