# Cloudflare Durable Objects

47 Hacker News commenters recommended Cloudflare Durable Objects and 15 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Gives each object its own compute and SQLite storage, with strong consistency and fast local access, useful for multiplayer, agents, and per-user state. Main caveat: lock-in to Cloudflare's infrastructure.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong consistency at global scale (4 comments): "Part of what makes cloudflare durable objects great is the sheer availability and consistency at a true global scale" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48849332)) "transactions are essentially free with no possibility of conflicts and no worry about blocking other queries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46231078)) "cloudflare gives you that instant geo-sync across the world that is hard to beat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189020))
- Fast local database access (3 comments): "Since the database is literally a local file on the machine hosting the Durable Object that talks to it, access is ridiculously fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47696640)) "especially durable objects that are guaranteed to have one of them running in the world with a tightly bound database." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47875401)) "sqlite-backed durable objects that quickly hibernate and quickly resume are quite nice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48688914))
- Good pattern for per-user data (3 comments): "I think it's the recommended pattern for having a db per user" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46230044)) "you can tie Durable Objects to a user as an afterthought." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46744707)) "if the data is smaller and per user then Durable Objects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48619282))
- Suits multiplayer and real-time apps (3 comments): "have been delighted with how easy they (and PartyKit) make building multiplayer apps like this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944783)) "durable objects do exactly what the "Ably pub/sub channel transport" diagram describes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47865935)) "I'm very impressed how well durable objects work for multiplayer experience!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234241))

## What people warn about

- Latency and scaling complaints (3 comments): "I find the database latency pretty hard to deal with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47676777)) "Durable objects, r2 as well as tunnel have been particularly poor performing in my experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445156)) "workerd's implementation of Durable Objects doesn't scale at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46012008))
- Lock-in to Cloudflare infrastructure (3 comments): "I've loved the idea of Durable Objects but I've disliked that there's no existing way to use them while scaling to multiple machines outside of Cloudflare." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49190796)) "because the state lives somewhere you structurally can't relocate" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48853384)) "heavily coupled to their proprietary infrastructure" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47678219))
- Overkill for simple projects (2 comments): "For a lot of uses of them, likely most uses, they are overkill." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189837)) "setting up Wrangler + Durable Objects + Container bindings just to run a Docker image is way too much ceremony" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47072327))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://developers.cloudflare.com/durable-objects/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Cloudflare Durable Objects", https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-durable-objects/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).