> Can I run functions written on any platform on Knative? Java? .net core? Js?
Anything that meets the Container Runtime Contract[0] should work.
> What about startup times? How do they compare to other solutions?
Startup times need a lot more work. Knative has a number of moving pieces which are contributing delay to startup time and they're being discussed or attacked by various groups. Some of this work will probably require changes to be contributed upstream to Kubernetes and Istio.
Startup time is the hardest (and most valuable) piece for everyone to work together on. By improving startup time of Kube containers, we can benefit (and draw from) a lot of people who are using Kube today, not just knative. This is a great example of trying to find an “everyone wins” scenario in open source and succeeding.
What about startup times? How do they compare to other solutions?