Cloudflare Workers is a powerful serverless platform that lets you run JavaScript code at the edge, deployed across Cloudflare's network in 330+ cities globally. Rather than routing requests to a centralized data center, Workers execute your code on servers closest to your users, delivering exceptional performance and ultra-low latency.
Unlike traditional serverless platforms like AWS Lambda that run in isolated containers, Cloudflare Workers uses the V8 JavaScript engine (the same engine powering Google Chrome) to provide near-instantaneous startup times. With zero cold starts and deployment to 300+ edge locations in under 30 seconds, Workers is built for speed, scale, and reliability.
Workers eliminate the traditional developer complexity of managing servers, containers, or infrastructure. Deploy your code once, and it's instantly available globally with automatic scaling and zero operational overhead.
Cloudflare Workers delivers exceptional performance that outpaces traditional serverless solutions. At the 95th percentile, Workers is 441% faster than AWS Lambda and 192% faster than Lambda@Edge, with response times around 40ms compared to Lambda's 882ms.
This dramatic speed difference comes from several architectural advantages:
For applications where milliseconds matter—e-commerce checkout, real-time analytics, API gateways, and dynamic content delivery—Workers' edge-first architecture provides unmatched performance advantages.
Cloudflare revolutionized serverless pricing by eliminating wasteful billing practices. Workers charges only for CPU time consumed, never for idle time waiting on I/O operations like database queries or API calls.
Pricing Structure:
This CPU-only billing model means you pay only for actual computation, making Workers significantly more economical for I/O-heavy workloads like API proxies, webhooks, and data aggregation services.
Deploying to Cloudflare's edge network is as simple as a single wrangler deploy command. There's no infrastructure to manage, no regions to configure, no scaling policies to optimize. Your code automatically:
This global distribution approach dramatically reduces latency compared to regional servers, providing immediate performance benefits for user-facing applications.
The V8 JavaScript runtime provides a powerful execution environment for serverless code. Workers supports:
The V8 engine's lightweight architecture means each Worker instance uses a fraction of the memory required by traditional serverless runtimes.
Cloudflare provides multiple storage options seamlessly integrated with Workers:
Workers KV - High-speed key-value store:
D1 Database - Distributed SQLite:
Durable Objects - Stateful compute:
R2 Storage - Object storage:
Wrangler, the official CLI for Cloudflare Workers, streamlines the entire development lifecycle from local testing to global deployment.
Install and Initialize: Use npm create cloudflare@latest (formerly C3) to scaffold a new project with Wrangler pre-configured
Local Development: Run wrangler dev to start a local server at localhost:8787 for testing your Worker before deployment
Deploy Globally: Execute wrangler deploy to instantly publish your code to Cloudflare's global network with zero downtime
Wrangler's configuration file (wrangler.toml) serves as the source of truth for your Worker project, managing:
Best practice: Treat your Wrangler configuration as the definitive source, avoiding manual changes in the Cloudflare dashboard to prevent conflicts during deployments.
Build complete REST APIs with Workers and D1, handling authentication, request validation, and data operations at the edge.
Common API use cases:
Use Workers to optimize content delivery with intelligent caching strategies:
Deploy security policies at the edge with Workers:
Build complete applications—frontend, backend, and database—on Cloudflare:
| Feature | Cloudflare Workers | AWS Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Start Time | <5ms (zero cold starts) | 100ms-1000ms+ |
| Execution Latency (p95) | 40ms | 216ms (Lambda@Edge), 882ms (standard) |
| Edge Locations | 330+ cities worldwide | Limited regional presence |
| Language Support | JavaScript/TypeScript | 7+ languages (Python, Java, Go, etc.) |
| Memory | Fixed 128MB | 128MB-10GB configurable |
| Max Timeout | 30 seconds | 15 minutes |
| Pricing Model | CPU-time only | Duration + memory usage |
| Cost per Million CPU | $0.50 | $1.84 |
| Data Transfer | No egress fees | Egress charges apply |
Workers excels at latency-sensitive edge computing, while Lambda offers greater flexibility for compute-intensive workloads with longer execution requirements.
You'll need:
Creating your first Worker takes minutes:
# Create new project
npm create cloudflare@latest my-worker
# Navigate to project
cd my-worker
# Start development server
npm run dev
# Deploy to production
npm run deploy
Your Worker is now live on https://my-worker.{your-subdomain}.workers.dev
Cloudflare integrated 20+ AI models directly into Workers, enabling on-edge AI processing:
The 4,000% year-over-year growth in Workers AI inference requests reflects rapid adoption of edge AI capabilities.
Built-in analytics provide deep insights into application behavior:
Build applications requiring strong consistency and global ordering:
Cloudflare's aggressive investment in the Workers platform positions it as the leading edge computing platform:
As applications demand lower latency and better performance, Cloudflare Workers' edge-first approach increasingly becomes the standard for modern application development.
Exceptional Performance: Eliminate regional latency with code executing in 330+ edge locations globally—transforming millisecond improvements into tangible user experience enhancements.
Transparent Pricing: Pay only for CPU time consumed, never for idle waiting. This innovative pricing model makes Workers dramatically cheaper for realistic workloads compared to duration-based platforms.
True Serverless Experience: Zero cold starts, instant global deployment, automatic scaling, and infrastructure management handled by Cloudflare. Write code, deploy, done.
Integrated Platform: KV for caching, D1 for databases, Durable Objects for state, R2 for storage, and Analytics Engine for insights—everything seamlessly integrated without external services.
Rapid Developer Iteration: Local development with wrangler dev, instant deployments, and preview URLs enable fast iteration cycles from idea to production.
AI-Powered Capabilities: Built-in access to 20+ AI models enables intelligent edge processing without external API calls.
Cloudflare Workers represents the evolution of serverless computing—moving away from regional data centers toward globally distributed edge computing that delivers superior performance, lower costs, and better developer experience.
Cloudflare Workers is a serverless edge computing platform that runs JavaScript code across Cloudflare's 330+ global data centers. Unlike AWS Lambda which runs in regional data centers, Workers executes code on edge servers closest to users, providing zero cold starts, 441% faster performance at p95, and superior latency. Workers uses the V8 JavaScript engine for near-instantaneous startup times.
Cloudflare Workers offers a free tier with 100,000 daily requests and a paid tier starting at $5/month for 10 million requests plus 30 million CPU milliseconds. Pricing is based only on CPU time consumed, never on idle waiting time or data transfer. This CPU-only billing makes Workers 3x cheaper than AWS Lambda for typical workloads.
Cloudflare Workers primarily supports JavaScript and TypeScript with first-class support. The platform uses the V8 JavaScript engine with full ECMAScript compatibility. You can also use Rust, C, and C++ for Workers, though JavaScript/TypeScript are the most commonly used and best-supported options.
Yes! Cloudflare Workers enables complete full-stack development. You can run backend APIs with frameworks like Hono or Remix, connect to D1 for databases, use KV for caching, store files in R2, build real-time features with Durable Objects, and serve frontend code—all on the same platform without separate infrastructure.
Use Wrangler, the official CLI tool. Create a project with 'npm create cloudflare@latest', develop locally with 'wrangler dev' (runs on localhost:8787), and deploy globally with 'wrangler deploy'. Preview URLs let you test before production, and deployment takes seconds to reach all 330+ edge locations worldwide.
Workers KV is a high-speed key-value store optimized for reads, perfect for caching and session storage. D1 is a distributed SQLite database ideal for structured data with global read replication. Durable Objects provide strongly consistent state for stateful workloads, real-time features, and complex transactions. Choose based on your data structure and consistency requirements.
No. Cloudflare Workers has zero cold starts because it uses V8 isolates that start in under 5ms instead of containers. This contrasts sharply with AWS Lambda's 100ms-1000ms+ cold starts. You get instant, consistent performance on every request without the latency penalty of container initialization.
Cloudflare Workers excel for: API development and proxying, dynamic content delivery, edge caching strategies, security filtering and WAF functionality, A/B testing, content localization, webhook handling, rate limiting, bot detection, and full-stack applications. They're ideal for any workload benefiting from edge execution, lower latency, and global distribution.
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Object storage service with zero egress fees and S3-compatible API. Cloudflare R2 offers 20-40% faster performance than AWS S3 with global uniform pricing for startups, media apps, and AI workloads.
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