Can I run ffmpeg on containers?

SSamandar Turdiev Can I run ffmpeg on containers?

I

Yes, with some caveats that encoding video using h264/h265 can be somewhat slow even on the highest tier available currently.

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Isaac McFadyen•8/9/25, 5:05 AM

But for transcoding or encoding lightweight formats like audio it runs well.

IIsaac McFadyen But for transcoding or encoding lightweight formats like audio it runs well.

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 5:16 AM

I just want to encode aac audio to mp3, average file size 50Mb

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 5:16 AM

What do you think, free tier is ok for my case?

SSamandar Turdiev I just want to encode aac audio to mp3, average file size 50Mb

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 5:26 AM

you can run ffmpeg there is one tutorial on youtube. I even got yt-dlp to run on it yesterday. Bit slow though. Cold start times are gnarley. Egress is expensive.

But if you just using it for your personal stuff it will be good. Try it out.

You get 500gb-1tb free depending on your region... Or something liek that according to the docs.

Ggnarley_farley.you can run ffmpeg there is one tutorial on youtube. I even got yt-dlp to run on...

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 5:27 AM

Doesn't cloudfare workers/containers have free egress?

SSamandar Turdiev Doesn't cloudfare workers/containers have free egress?

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 7:20 AM

Workers does, Containers doesn't

Ggnarley_farley.you can run ffmpeg there is one tutorial on youtube. I even got yt-dlp to run on...

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 7:21 AM

Thats still a decent included tier. I process a couple hundred 3+ hour videos a month and could get through all of my monthly usage within the provided tier

11984 Ford Laser Workers does, Containers doesn't

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 7:35 AM

Is Worker ineffiecnt for such cpu-intesive tasks?

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 7:37 AM

correct

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 7:40 AM

What can you recommend instead? I'm doing a massive conversion of audio files on-the-fly, per request, I need to offlod encoding process

11984 Ford Laser Thats still a decent included tier. I process a couple hundred 3+ hour videos a ...

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:40 AM

For Personal usage. For any app or service it's too expensive. Workers don't support the packages and also stuff like unsafe eval so not an option. Cool thing about containers is they support everything.

Ggnarley_farley.For Personal usage. For any app or service it's too expensive. Workers don't sup...

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 7:40 AM

An app or service should be adequately monetised to cover such costs

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:46 AM

Too expensive. Egress fee's for things like uploading to r2 make i very pricey. For personal usage sure. Very nice

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:47 AM

Let's see how widely adopted this becomes in the next few months to a year.

SSamandar Turdiev What can you recommend instead? I'm doing a massive conversion of audio files on...

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:49 AM

If it's for users try offload to their personal computers with something like a companion app. If you have to do it remotely checkout the price of vm's. You can get them for betwen 100x to 1000x cheaper than containers depending on your workloads.

Ggnarley_farley.If it's for users try offload to their personal computers with something like a ...

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 7:51 AM

Companion app?

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:52 AM

Things like ffmpeg or yt-dlp can be run off a users computer. You can make users install a binary or application on their personal computers that can interface with your service in some way. So they can make use of your software but using their personal resources

Ggnarley_farley.If it's for users try offload to their personal computers with something like a ...

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Samandar TurdievOP•8/9/25, 7:52 AM

I'll try to check vm options

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 7:53 AM

Check racknerd and try find their specials or some other service. Yearly costs are pretty low. You can upload to s3 or r2 and then make downloadable links from there.

Ggnarley_farley.Check racknerd and try find their specials or some other service. Yearly costs a...

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 8:12 AM

Whats latency like if they don't have a nearby DC?

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:12 AM

Better than 13 second cold starts on containers. Forsure.

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1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 8:13 AM

What does it cost to get more bandwidth?

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:13 AM

A lot

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:14 AM

Depends though on your use case. If you processing video for users

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:14 AM

This is way too expensive

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 8:14 AM

no with racknerd I know how to read CF docs

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:14 AM

They have a lot of unlimited plans

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:15 AM

For like 200$+ a year for a pretty sick vm and unlimited download and upload

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:17 AM

Example 7tb per month for 28$ per year.

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:18 AM

1 tb for cf containers cost more than this yearly cost.

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 8:18 AM

CF Containers isnt intended to be a 24/7/365 product

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:19 AM

where you get 84 terrabytes of egress.. yeah we not looking for 24/7 products.

1

1984 Ford Laser•8/9/25, 8:19 AM

the egress is also cheaper than what aws charges for ec2 at least in my region

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gnarley_farley.•8/9/25, 8:31 AM

Let's compare to their own services instead. I would happily pay them 1 bar a month at the right price. The current fee's just make it something we won't ever use. End of story

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Code Cowboy•8/9/25, 2:30 PM

Error checking 8787: connect(): Connection refused: container port not found. Make sure you exposed the port in your container definition.

Error checking 8787: connect(): Connection refused: container port not found. Make sure you exposed the port in your container definition.

Error checking 8787: connect(): Connection refused: container port not found. Make sure you exposed the port in your container definition.

Error checking 8787: connect(): Connection refused: container port not found. Make sure you exposed the port in your container definition.

Why is it checking 8787? Also anybody found a way to fix this?

EEelco Downgrading to "@cloudflare/containers": "0.0.19", from 0.0.22 fixed it.

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Code Cowboy•8/9/25, 2:40 PM

Wow @Eelco you are a legend, downgrading to 0.0.19 fixed local dev for me, super frustrating

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spike•8/9/25, 5:50 PM

✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object. 
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object.

✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object. 
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object.

✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object. 
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object.

✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Error checking if container is ready: Network connection lost.
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object. 
✘ [ERROR] Uncaught Error: Application called abort() to reset Durable Object.

anyone else seeing this intermittent abort error when starting with startandwaitforports.

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pandalambda2•8/10/25, 3:43 AM

do containers work with cloudflare tail log workers? trying to understand how I can push logs to axiom logging service without changing app code, sticking logpush product behind an enterprise account seems an odd decision given infrastructure manages the logs is a core part of the 12factor methodology.

Sscotto How can I check that if it's automated as far as I know

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scotto•8/10/25, 6:34 PM

Any help @kian ?

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berkant•8/10/25, 9:32 PM

Hi, do Cache Rules or stuff like

{cf: {cacheEverything: true}}

{cf: {cacheEverything: true}}

{cf: {cacheEverything: true}}

{cf: {cacheEverything: true}} apply to containers if called fetch on them?

N

nickGPT•8/11/25, 1:44 AM

Does anyone know, a way to minimize the container cold start time? Trying to get it to be 2-3 seconds, but is right now 13 seconds. Thought I could make it smaller by reducing the image size and using buildx to create a optimized build for the linux/amd64 container runtime, but no luck

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Code Cowboy•8/11/25, 5:24 AM

Is there a way to increase 2GB image size limit?

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pandalambda2•8/11/25, 7:11 AM

how does outbound http requests work from a container? does the infra still smash on CF-Worker request header?

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pandalambda2•8/11/25, 7:13 AM

and cf.worker.upstream_zone

Jjmickelly Hey, I just have a question around Cloudflare containers, does it support nested...

J

jmickelly•8/11/25, 9:34 AM

Is there an update to this?

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pandalambda2•8/11/25, 12:30 PM

you would definitely expect this channel to be driving their FAQ and early feedback especially this early in the product launch, it's shame there seems to be little CF staff activity here

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pandalambda2•8/11/25, 12:30 PM

each time I read the docs I end up with more questions than I started

Sscotto Any help @kian ?

K

kian•8/11/25, 4:13 PM

It should be created as a normal API token under your account: https://dash.cloudflare.com/profile/api-tokens

CCode Cowboy Is there a way to increase 2GB image size limit? 😬

K

kian•8/11/25, 4:15 PM

basic

basic

basic

basic and

standard

standard

standard

standard instances should have 4GB limits - nothing higher available at the moment though

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