Bring your code closer to content with serverless functions on Contentful

What if you could run logic right where your content lives? What if you could react to changes in real time, enrich content with external data instantly, and deploy backend features with zero infrastructure setup? That’s the promise of serverless functions on Contentful. These enhancements let you build faster, simplify architectures, and remove blockers between your content and your code.

Contentful’s App Framework has long empowered teams to customize how they build and deliver content. Now, with the introduction of serverless functions, that extensibility goes further than ever before. This new capability allows you to bring code and content closer together than previously possible — opening up faster, smarter ways to build without the operational overhead of managing backend infrastructure.

What are serverless functions?

Available to customers on our Premium plans, serverless functions are event-driven workloads that run natively on Contentful’s infrastructure. Instead of spinning up separate servers or maintaining webhook endpoints, you can now execute code in response to content events or app actions — all within the Contentful environment.

With serverless functions, you can connect to external APIs, enrich content queries, and run secure backend logic triggered by user interaction or system events. What’s more, these workloads run entirely within the Contentful platform.

Beyond simplifying deployment, serverless functions also improve performance, reduce latency, and centralize the custom software that powers content, freeing up teams to focus on features instead of infrastructure. Learn more about serverless functions in this handy guide.

App event functions and app action functions

Handling content lifecycle events

When content is created, updated, or published in Contentful, events are triggered. Previously, handling these events required external webhook consumers. App event functions now allow you to intercept, filter, transform, and respond to these events directly inside Contentful.

This is ideal for automating workflows. For example, publishing an article can automatically trigger validation checks, notify external systems, or send updates to a translation queue. You can filter which events are processed, transform payloads, or execute complex logic on the fly.

Powering custom app logic

App action functions, meanwhile, let you create reusable backend logic that your apps can trigger. These functions support HTTP calls, npm packages, and the Contentful CMA, and they can be shared across apps and environments.

You can use them to automate form submissions, generate image variants, validate user input, or power AI-assisted content suggestions — all from within Contentful.

With custom external reference functions, you can even run server-side logic at content delivery time, enabling advanced personalization and context-aware rendering.

Real-world impact

Serverless functions aren’t just a developer convenience. They greatly impact workflows and processes for non-technical users as well.

For example, consider a media organization that is looking to automate their publishing process. With event functions, new entries can be tagged and reviewed by AI, and checked to see if it is in compliance with brand guidelines. If it's not, it can also send an alert to a Slack channel or another communication app.

Developer benefits

For developers, serverless functions simplify the stack. There’s no need to maintain a separate API server or deploy middleware to cloud providers. You write your function, deploy it via the Contentful CLI, and it runs securely and scalably within the Contentful platform.

This tighter feedback loop improves developer velocity. Built-in logging and version control make debugging straightforward. And because functions are modular, you can design your app in smaller, testable components that are easier to maintain.

Why this matters

The launch of serverless functions is already having an immediate impact on how you can extend Contentful, and lays the foundation for further innovation in the future. Instead of cobbling together content services and custom infrastructure, you can now build, deploy, and run dynamic content apps directly in Contentful.

This reduces time to value, lowers maintenance costs, and creates a single source of truth for content and logic. It empowers technical teams to move faster and gives content teams the confidence that their tools are tightly integrated and built to scale.

As digital experiences become more dynamic, personalized, and distributed, the ability to run code where your content lives will be a competitive differentiator.

Looking ahead

This is just the beginning. Serverless functions pave the way for smarter automation, better performance, and new categories of applications. Whether you're building editorial tools, enriching content, or enforcing brand guidelines, serverless functions is your new foundation.

Future enhancements will expand triggers, increase execution flexibility, and introduce new ways to collaborate across teams. If you’ve used the App Framework before, now’s the time to revisit what’s possible. And if you haven’t, there’s never been a better time to get started.

Serverless functions are available now as part of the Contentful App Framework. Before you start building, check how they align with your current pricing plan — or contact our sales team to learn more about becoming a Contentful customer. We can’t wait to see what you build.

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