# 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 (Cloudflare puts cold starts at 1 to 3 seconds, depending on image size) - Disk is ephemeral: a container that went to sleep wakes up on a fresh disk built from its image. For persistence, use filesystem snapshots (public beta since September 30, 2026, with the `durable_object` scheduling policy) or mount an [[Cloudflare R2|R2]] bucket through FUSE (slower than a local SSD) ## Status and Pricing Shape - **Generally available since April 13, 2026**, on the Workers Paid plan only - **Billed per 10 ms of activity**: memory and disk by provisioned size, CPU by actual use. The $5 plan includes 25 GiB-hours of memory, 375 vCPU-minutes and 200 GB-hours of disk per month - **Instance types** go from `lite` (1/16 vCPU, 256 MiB) to `standard-4` (4 vCPU, 12 GiB, 20 GB disk), and custom types are available - **Egress**: 1 TB/month included in North America and Europe, then $0.025/GB - **2026 additions**: SSH into running instances (March), Docker Hub images (March), regional and jurisdiction placement (April), `exec()` (June), snapshots (September) ## Common Use Cases - **Headless browsers** (alternative path to [[Cloudflare Browser Rendering|Browser Run]]) - **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/ - Limits and instance types: https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/platform/limits/ - FAQ (cold starts, disk persistence): https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/faq/ - Changelog, Containers and Sandboxes GA (2026-04-13): https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-04-13-containers-sandbox-ga/ - Changelog, SSH support (2026-03-12): https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-03-12-ssh-support/ - Changelog, Docker Hub images (2026-03-24): https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-03-24-docker-hub-images/ - Changelog, regional placement (2026-04-05): https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-04-05-regional-placement/ - Changelog, filesystem snapshots (2026-09-30): https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-09-30-snapshots/ ## Related - [[Cloudflare]] - [[Cloudflare Workers]] - [[Cloudflare Durable Objects]] - [[Cloudflare Sandbox SDK]] - [[Cloudflare Browser Rendering|Cloudflare Browser Run]] - [[Cloudflare R2]] - [[KiteSurf]] - [[Docker]] - [[Wrangler]]