There are still servers, you just don't manage them. That removes a lot of operational work (no patching, scaling, or capacity planning) and fits variable or unpredictable traffic well, since it scales to zero when unused and up automatically when busy.
The trade-offs are less low-level control and, at very high or constant volume, potentially higher cost than a fixed server. For many modern sites and apps, though, serverless is the simplest way to get automatic scaling and low maintenance.
Updated July 2026