Best Cloudflare Workers alternatives in 2025

Cloudflare Workers is a serverless platform that runs JavaScript, TypeScript, or WebAssembly at the edge on Cloudflare’s global network. It uses V8 isolates, lightweight sandboxed runtimes, allowing for extremely fast cold starts (often under 5 ms) and low-latency request handling close to users.

Workers excel at:

• Routing and modifying HTTP requests
• Running lightweight APIs
• Authentication and caching logic
• Small amounts of AI inference via Workers AI

Limits to keep in mind:

• No arbitrary binaries or custom OS environments (unless using the separate Cloudflare Containers product)
• No persistent network connections
• Memory capped at 128 MB
• Execution time capped at tens of milliseconds
• Stateless by design

Pricing is usage-based:

• Requests: First 10 million/month included, billed per million after.
• CPU time: Charged in GB-seconds based on execution time × memory allocation.
• Additional services: Durable Objects, KV, D1 database, R2 object storage, and Queues are billed separately.

Free tier allowances:

• 100,000 requests/day
• 10 ms CPU time per request (bursts up to 50 ms)
• 128 MB memory per execution
• 1 MB script size
• Limited access to Durable Objects and other paid features

These constraints are often the deciding factor for teams moving to alternatives.

Cloudflare Workers AI is a managed AI inference service on the edge. It gives access to a curated set of open-source models for text, vision, and speech. Models run in Cloudflare’s environment and are accessed via API calls from Workers.

Limitations:

• Cannot upload custom models or weights
• No GPU selection or tuning
• Model library limited to Cloudflare’s supported list
• No training or fine-tuning options

For AI workloads requiring control over models, GPU specs, or private datasets, self-hosting on a full container platform is more flexible.

Teams typically explore Cloudflare Workers alternatives for one or more of these reasons:

• Resource limits: 128 MB memory and short execution windows make heavy compute or large in-memory processing impossible.
• Language/runtime restrictions: Workers support JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly, but not arbitrary runtimes or full Linux environments. (unless using the separate Cloudflare Containers product).
• Stateful needs: Persistent connections, long-running processes, or on-instance storage are not supported.
• AI flexibility: Workers AI only supports a fixed set of models with no GPU choice or custom model hosting.
• Cost scaling: Once workloads exceed the free tier and start requiring extra services like Durable Objects, R2, and D1, costs can rise quickly.
• Security control: Workers cannot run untrusted code in a fully isolated, configurable environment.

These limitations push many teams to pair Workers with, or move entirely to, a more flexible container platform.

Here are the top Cloudflare Workers alternatives in 2025.

The best Cloudflare Workers alternative for full container orchestration is Northflank.

Northflank is a container-first developer platform for deploying APIs, services, AI inference, and full-stack applications. It runs any Docker container with no language or runtime restrictions.

Capabilities:

• Full Linux containers with persistent storage and private networking
• Scalability: Horizontal autoscaling, zero-downtime deploys
• AI support: Deploy any AI model with GPU choice, fine-tuning, and dataset integration
• Networking: Private services, VPC peering, TLS termination, custom domains
• CI/CD: Integrated pipelines for automated builds and deployments
• Stateful workloads: Databases, message queues, caching layers run alongside stateless apps
• Security: Isolated execution, RBAC, secrets management

When to choose Northflank over Workers:

• More than 128 MB memory or 50 ms CPU needed
• Persistent services or connections required
• AI workloads with custom GPUs or models
• Complex networking between multiple services
• Consolidating backend infrastructure in one orchestrated environment

Northflank can replace Workers entirely for heavier workloads or serve as a backend platform that Workers call for compute-intensive tasks.

Runs JavaScript/TypeScript at the edge using WebAssembly isolates. Integrated with Vercel’s frontend hosting and build pipeline.

Strengths:

• Seamless for teams already on Vercel
• Good developer experience for frontend-heavy apps

Limitations:

• Slightly higher latency in some regions vs Workers
• Smaller geographic footprint than Cloudflare
• Tied to Vercel ecosystem

Built on Deno runtime, running at Netlify’s CDN edge. Designed for JAMstack applications.

Strengths:

• Tight Git integration and build automation
• Built-in features like form handling and authentication

Limitations:

• Limited runtime support (Deno only)
• Smaller global footprint compared to Cloudflare

Extends Lambda functions to AWS CloudFront locations.

Strengths:

• Full AWS integration
• More powerful runtimes than Workers

Limitations:

• Slower cold starts
• Fewer edge locations than Cloudflare
• Higher latency for some regions

Cloudflare Workers is well-suited for ultra-low-latency, stateless workloads at the edge. But for teams that need more compute, storage, or AI flexibility, alternatives offer broader capabilities.

Northflank stands out as the most complete choice among Cloudflare Workers alternatives, delivering full container orchestration, persistent services, AI hosting with GPU choice, secure sandboxing, and transparent pricing.

If you’re hitting the limits of Workers and need more control over your runtime, get started with Northflank for free and deploy your first container in minutes.