In modern web hosting, serverless functions are a powerful way to run backend code without managing servers. You upload your code, and the cloud provider automatically handles execution, scaling, and maintenance. This approach is also known as Function-as-a-Service (FaaS).

Key benefits include:

• Cost Efficiency: You pay only for the compute time your code actually uses, measured in milliseconds.
• Automatic Scaling: Functions scale instantly with incoming requests, from zero to thousands.
• Reduced Complexity: No server provisioning, patching, or infrastructure management is needed.

Common use cases are:

• Processing form submissions or file uploads
• Handling API requests
• Running scheduled tasks (cron jobs)
• Real-time data processing

For example, you might write a function to resize uploaded images. When a user uploads a file, it triggers your function, which processes the image and saves it. The rest of the time, the function is idle, costing you nothing.

While "serverless" doesn't mean there are no servers, it means you don't see or manage them. It's an excellent choice for event-driven, intermittent tasks, allowing developers to focus on writing code rather than managing infrastructure.