# Cloudflare Workers vs Knative

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Cloudflare Workers

| Attribute | Cloudflare Workers | Knative |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 90.8 (63% (medium)) | 54.7 (54% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 11 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 446 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 6,086 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A serverless platform enabling developers to deploy applications and scripts that run across Cloudflare's global infrastructure, scaling automatically from zero requests to millions, with billing based on actual execution time rather than reserved capacity. | Open-source platform for deploying and auto-scaling containerized serverless applications on Kubernetes with integrated event routing and HTTP/gRPC serving. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","triggers":"HTTP requests, cron schedules, webhooks, message queues","languages":"JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust","cold_start":"none","cli_and_iac":true,"http_trigger":true,"durable_state":true,"scale_to_zero":true,"custom_runtime":true,"scheduled_cron":true,"edge_distributed":true,"runtime_substrate":"isolate"}` | `{"hosting":"self","triggers":"HTTP, CloudEvents, Kubernetes event sources","languages":"Any language via containerized HTTP/gRPC services","cold_start":"high","cli_and_iac":true,"http_trigger":true,"scale_to_zero":true,"custom_runtime":true,"runtime_substrate":"container","observability_builtin":true}` |
| integrations.count | - | 5 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"AWS S3"},{"name":"AWS SQS"},{"name":"AWS DynamoDB Streams"},{"name":"Apache Camel"},{"name":"Istio"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free tier for hobby projects","features":["DNS","DDoS Protection","CDN","Universal SSL","WAF","Free Managed Ruleset","SSO Support","Role-based Account Control"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For personal or hobby projects","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"containers_cpu":"375 vCPU-min","containers_disk":"200 GB-hrs","workers_cpu_time":"10ms/request","workers_requests":"100k/day","browser_rendering":"10 min/day","containers_memory":"25 GiB-hrs","workflows_storage":"1 GB","browser_concurrent":"3 browsers","workflows_cpu_time":"10ms/invocation","workflows_requests":"100k/day","containers_egress_na_eu":"1 TB","durable_objects_duration":"13k GB-s/day","durable_objects_requests":"100k/day","durable_objects_kv_storage":"1 GB","durable_objects_sql_storage":"5 GB","durable_objects_sql_rows_read":"50M/day","durable_objects_sql_rows_written":"100k/day"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"$20/mo billed annually or $25/mo billed monthly","features":["Fast DNS","Unmetered DDoS Protection","CDN","Universal SSL Certificate","Free Managed Ruleset","Web Application Firewall","Lossless Image Optimization","Accelerated Mobile Pages","100% Uptime SLA","1x Uptime Service Credits","Single-Sign-On Support","Role-based Account Control"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":25,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","amount":20,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For professional websites","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Business","summary":"$200/mo billed annually or $250/mo billed monthly","features":["Fast DNS","Unmetered DDoS Protection","CDN","Universal SSL Certificate","Free Managed Ruleset","Web Application Firewall","Lossless Image Optimization","Accelerated Mobile Pages","PCI DSS 4.0 Compliance","10x or 25x Uptime Service Credits","Single-Sign-On Support","Role-based Account Control","Network Prioritization"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":250,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","amount":200,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For small businesses operating online","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Contract","summary":"Custom pricing, billed annually","commitment":"annual","description":"For mission-critical applications","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Workers (metered)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"requests"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.3,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"CPU ms"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Containers (metered)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB-second"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.0000025,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"vCPU-second"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.00002,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-second"},"kind":"metered","amount":7e-8,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.025,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Durable Objects (metered)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"requests"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.15,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"GB-s"},"kind":"metered","amount":12.5,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"SQL rows read"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.001,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"SQL rows written"},"kind":"metered","amount":1,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Browser Rendering (metered)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.09,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"browser"},"kind":"metered","amount":2,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Workflows (metered)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"requests"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.3,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"CPU ms"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.02,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2,"currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"Free tier with per-request and per-CPU metering. General Cloudflare plans from free to $250/mo; Workers add-on services metered separately.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.cloudflare.com/plans","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T16:41:04.189Z","startingPrice":{"amount":20,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://knative.dev","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T09:25:30.744Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | mid | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 6 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.23.0","date":"2026-07-29T09:58:30Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.23.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.22.1","date":"2026-06-02T12:06:30Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.22.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.21.3","date":"2026-06-02T12:06:29Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.21.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.22.0","date":"2026-04-28T22:48:57Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.21.2","date":"2026-03-24T11:28:14Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.21.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.21.1","date":"2026-02-24T11:30:05Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.21.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.20.3","date":"2026-02-24T11:36:40Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.20.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.9","date":"2026-01-28T16:43:51Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.21.0","date":"2026-01-27T11:40:37Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.20.2","date":"2026-01-27T11:38:03Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.20.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.20.1","date":"2025-12-25T05:43:18Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.20.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.8","date":"2025-12-23T11:37:11Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.20.0","date":"2025-10-29T10:19:44Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.7","date":"2025-10-24T01:13:10Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.18.2","date":"2025-10-24T01:15:27Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.18.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.6","date":"2025-09-16T11:37:26Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.5","date":"2025-09-09T11:32:10Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.4","date":"2025-09-02T11:38:06Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.3","date":"2025-09-02T03:29:43Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/tag/knative-v1.19.2","date":"2025-08-26T11:37:33Z","type":"stable","version":"knative-v1.19.2"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | 100 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 8 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=knative.dev%2Fserving&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` |

## Capabilities (Serverless & Edge Platforms)

| Capability | Cloudflare Workers | Knative |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Execution substrate | V8 isolate | Container |
| Language / runtime breadth | JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust | Any language via containerized HTTP/gRPC services |
| **Reach** |  |  |
| Runs at global edge PoPs | ✓ | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Scale to zero | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Performance** |  |  |
| Cold-start profile | None (isolate) | High (VM / container) |
| **Limits** |  |  |
| Max execution duration | - | - |
| **Integration** |  |  |
| Event source breadth | HTTP requests, cron schedules, webhooks, message queues | HTTP, CloudEvents, Kubernetes event sources |
| HTTP endpoint trigger | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cron / scheduled invocations | ✓ | - |
| **State** |  |  |
| Durable state / workflow primitive | ✓ | - |
| **Flexibility** |  |  |
| Bring-your-own runtime / container | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Self-hosted only |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Built-in logs / metrics / tracing | - | ✓ |
| **Extensibility** |  |  |
| CLI + IaC / framework support | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:47:48.448Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*
