# Cloudflare Containers [[Cloudflare]] Containers runs full [[Docker]] images on Cloudflare's network, addressable as instances tied to [[Cloudflare Durable Objects]]. Each container is an OCI image deployed via [[Wrangler]] and woken on demand by a Worker; once running, it can serve HTTP, execute commands, persist a filesystem, and expose ports. This is Cloudflare's escape hatch from the Workers runtime: when V8 isolates can't run what you need (long-running daemons, native binaries, languages outside the Workers SDK, full Node/Python with arbitrary deps), Containers does. It's also the substrate underneath [[Cloudflare Sandbox SDK]]. ## Why It Matters Workers covers ~80% of edge workloads. The remaining 20% — headless browsers, FFmpeg, native ML, anything needing arbitrary system libraries — has historically required dropping back to AWS or a VPS. Containers brings that work onto the same platform, with the same edge addressability and binding model. ## Architecture Shape - Each container instance is associated with a Durable Object class - The Worker calls into the DO; the DO ensures the container is running and proxies to it - Containers can sleep when idle and wake up on the next request (cold-start measured in seconds) - Persistent storage available via mounted volumes ## Common Use Cases - **Headless browsers** (alternative path to [[Cloudflare Browser Rendering]]) - **Heavy media processing** — FFmpeg, ImageMagick, video transcoding - **AI inference** with custom models that don't fit Workers AI - **Code execution sandboxes** (via [[Cloudflare Sandbox SDK]]) - **Legacy apps** that won't fit the Workers runtime ## References - Containers home: https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/ - Pricing: https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/platform/pricing/ ## Related - [[Cloudflare]] - [[Cloudflare Workers]] - [[Cloudflare Durable Objects]] - [[Cloudflare Sandbox SDK]] - [[Cloudflare Browser Rendering]] - [[Docker]] - [[Wrangler]]