What's the simplest possible way to use DynamoDB from a browser?

Question

I'm building a proof-of-concept UI served as a static JS application (just free static hosting on Netlify), and I'd like to be able to read and write data to a NoSQL database.

As it's a PoC, I need to keep it 100% free. The request rate will be super low; only a few people will ever see it. DynamoDB seems like a good choice for size and cost ($0).

So what's the simplest possible way to read/write data from DynamoDB from a browser client? It's hard to tell what's absolutely necessary. Ideally I'd connect directly to the database (no API gateway, no lambdas), while maintaining some kind of baseline security.

Answer 1

You can query dynamodb from your browser using aws sdk for browser,

you will need to carefully create a IAM user with limited access (eg. no updateTable perms etc. )

Keep in mind that anyone could hijack your access keys and increase the throughput and generate cost ( if they have updateTable priv. ) or query your tables outside of your website and consume all the available capacity.

I would still go with API gateway / lambda

Answer 2

There is no need for API gateway / lambda for simple DynamoDB requests. I would suggest to use AWS Cognito with the AWS Amplify Auth Library to get access to the DynamoDB. Then use a client like Dynamo-Easy which has some nice abstraction, so you can jump start your dev without learning the low level of the DynamoDB JS client from AWS.