Cloudflare Durable Objects
Hacker ApprovedServerless stateful primitive in Hosting & cloud
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.
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.
62 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 47
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 76%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 47 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong consistency at global scale
“Part of what makes cloudflare durable objects great is the sheer availability and consistency at a true global scale”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Why we're moving off Cloudflare Durable Objects” “transactions are essentially free with no possibility of conflicts and no worry about blocking other queries”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow” “cloudflare gives you that instant geo-sync across the world that is hard to beat”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Celld: Self-hosted, distributed Durable Objects” - Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Why we're moving off Cloudflare Durable Objects”
Fast local database access
“Since the database is literally a local file on the machine hosting the Durable Object that talks to it, access is ridiculously fast.”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: Why people still use GCP and AWS?” “especially durable objects that are guaranteed to have one of them running in the world with a tightly bound database.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “sqlite-backed durable objects that quickly hibernate and quickly resume are quite nice”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs” Good pattern for per-user data
“I think it's the recommended pattern for having a db per user”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow” “you can tie Durable Objects to a user as an afterthought.”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Many Small Queries Are Efficient in SQLite” “if the data is smaller and per user then Durable Objects”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “Temporary Cloudflare Accounts for AI Agents” Suits multiplayer and real-time apps
“have been delighted with how easy they (and PartyKit) make building multiplayer apps like this”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)” “durable objects do exactly what the "Ably pub/sub channel transport" diagram describes”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “All your agents are going async” “I'm very impressed how well durable objects work for multiplayer experience!”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Latency and scaling complaints
“I find the database latency pretty hard to deal with.”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Dropping Cloudflare for Bunny.net” “Durable objects, r2 as well as tunnel have been particularly poor performing in my experience.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “A super fast website using Cloudflare workers” “workerd's implementation of Durable Objects doesn't scale at all”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Head in the Zed Cloud” Lock-in to Cloudflare infrastructure
“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.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work” “because the state lives somewhere you structurally can't relocate”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “Why we're moving off Cloudflare Durable Objects” “heavily coupled to their proprietary infrastructure”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Dropping Cloudflare for Bunny.net” Overkill for simple projects
“For a lot of uses of them, likely most uses, they are overkill.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Celld: Self-hosted, distributed Durable Objects” “setting up Wrangler + Durable Objects + Container bindings just to run a Docker image is way too much ceremony”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Heroku/Fly.io-like app deployments to Cloudflare Containers”
What people said
40 of the 82 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Code and its data locked away together, frozen when not in use, but ready to go in milliseconds when a request comes in.”
“most might be better off using durable objects directly rather than D1 anyway”
“all of it can be explained on a single A4 page with a 14pt font including D1 + Durable objects”
“nothing like durable objects (with containers no less) really exists in other clouds”
“Durable Objects are really neat, not everything has to be giant and scalable in every way”
“I'm very impressed how well durable objects work for multiplayer experience!”
“In many cases, I think using Cloudflare's Durable Objects is probably the right call instead.”
“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.”
“For a lot of uses of them, likely most uses, they are overkill.”
“cloudflare gives you that instant geo-sync across the world that is hard to beat”
“It might be in the standard cloudflare/actors SDK I used for Cloudflare Durable Objects.”
“Cloudflare Durable Objects are pretty cheap and I'm using it like a very basic pub/sub”
“because the state lives somewhere you structurally can't relocate”
“The thought of moving back to Fly after CF is completely absurd to me”
“Part of what makes cloudflare durable objects great is the sheer availability and consistency at a true global scale”
“With a DO you're at the mercy of the platform's placement and migration.”
“Cloudflare Durable Objects feel like the best means to implement a sequential number generator”
“the sheer availability and consistency at a true global scale”
“being able to run a redis comparible store on an a cloudflare durable object so you do I.e. rate limiting for free with little infra”
“sqlite-backed durable objects that quickly hibernate and quickly resume are quite nice”
“Durable Objects (SQLite) or Hyperdrive (edge caching in front of a normal postgres/mysql database) are what you want”
“if the data is smaller and per user then Durable Objects”
“It's almost always better to use Durable Objects storage, rather than D1.”
“Globally deploying edge workers which have access to their many services (D1, R2, DO, etc)”
“especially durable objects that are guaranteed to have one of them running in the world with a tightly bound database.”
“durable objects do exactly what the "Ably pub/sub channel transport" diagram describes”
“Durable Objects for agent state is the correct move for low-latency memory”
“moving to durable objects which are each backed by an sqlite database seems to be the way to go currently”
“for tick-based strategy with hour-long timers, DOs feel like the cleanest fit”
“Since the database is literally a local file on the machine hosting the Durable Object that talks to it, access is ridiculously fast.”
“heavily coupled to their proprietary infrastructure”
“I find the database latency pretty hard to deal with.”
“setting up Wrangler + Durable Objects + Container bindings just to run a Docker image is way too much ceremony”
“have been delighted with how easy they (and PartyKit) make building multiplayer apps like this”
“you can tie Durable Objects to a user as an afterthought.”
“Durable objects, r2 as well as tunnel have been particularly poor performing in my experience.”
“I think this is unique to Cloudflare. AWS or Google Cloud don't seem to offer these things (statefulness basically).”
“transactions are essentially free with no possibility of conflicts and no worry about blocking other queries”
“I think it's the recommended pattern for having a db per user”
“workerd's implementation of Durable Objects doesn't scale at all”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.