IdeaSift

AWS developers struggle to presign S3 uploads in constrained runtimes

Developers building around AppSync, AWS SDKs, and WASM or edge runtimes need to create S3 presigned URLs, but report gaps in the signing features or runtime support available to them. Their workarounds include invoking Lambda or deploying a separate signing service, which adds operational complexity and, in one report, Lambda cost. The signals are from 2019–2022, so current SDK capabilities should be checked before building.

For AWS application and backend developers. Mentioned from Oct 2019 to Aug 2022 on GitHub.

5 different people described this problem in 3 separate discussions.

Week of 2026-07-13: 0Week of 2026-07-20: 0Week of 2026-07-27: 0Week of 2026-08-03: 0Week of 2026-08-10: 0Week of 2026-08-17: 0Week of 2026-08-24: 0Week of 2026-08-31: 0Week of 2026-09-07: 0Week of 2026-09-14: 0Week of 2026-09-21: 0Week of 2026-09-28: 0
0 mentions in the last 12 weeks
Indie fit
4.0/10
Pain
5.6/10
Frequency
6.5/10
Willingness to pay
0.0/10
Momentum
5.0/10
Who pays
Professionals
Competition
High
Build difficulty
Medium

What people said

Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.

  1. 100ms Lambda bill time makes using a Lambda to sign a URL (or even a large array of signed URL's) a costly operation. While you could offset that cost by writing a simple containerized S3 URL signing service, that requires fronting access to the containers via API Gateway
    mdavid on GitHub (aws/aws-appsync-community)Apr 2020Asked for a toolHas a workaround
  2. This missing feature is the only reason my read-only AppSync queries need to invoke lambda, seems like an huge missing link between two of AWS's most prominent services
Build brief

See what to build and who will buy it

  • 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
  • 4 places to find your first customers
  • 3 more quotes from people who have this problem
  • Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks