--- title: Offloading FFmpeg with Cloudflare | daily.dev description: Kent C. Dodds shares how a long podcast episode caused his Fly.io primary server to hit 400-500% CPU load, forcing him to offload FFmpeg processing to... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/offloading-ffmpeg-with-cloudflare-gzqcadrcc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Offloading FFmpeg with Cloudflare | daily.dev og:description: Kent C. Dodds shares how a long podcast episode caused his Fly.io primary server to hit 400-500% CPU load, forcing him to offload FFmpeg processing to... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/offloading-ffmpeg-with-cloudflare-gzqcadrcc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/gzqcaDRCC.png og:image:alt: Offloading FFmpeg with Cloudflare og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Offloading FFmpeg with Cloudflare **[Kent C. Dodds](https://daily.dev/sources/kentcdodds)** · [@kentcdodds](https://daily.dev/kentcdodds) · 11 min read · 60 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary Kent C. Dodds shares how a long podcast episode caused his Fly.io primary server to hit 400-500% CPU load, forcing him to offload FFmpeg processing to Cloudflare Queues and Containers. The new architecture enqueues a job from the app, a Cloudflare Worker forwards it to a Container that runs FFmpeg, uploads results to R2, and POSTs a signed HMAC-SHA256 callback to the app. The post covers the before/after metrics (85% reduction in peak load), cost tradeoffs between Cloudflare and a dedicated Fly.io machine, and several implementation mistakes caught after the initial PR: a counterproductive local fallback, container lifecycle issues with sleepAfter, and a queue worker that blocked for the full transcode duration. The conclusion reinforces a 'start simple, iterate when reality demands it' philosophy. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@dheerajverma12** · 0 upvotes > working on cloud rather than preparing the own server with this much work, I think the own server will serve as the better alternative, if done with right hardware. No burnout **@snazzie** · 0 upvotes > Why not just run your own high end cpu server with nvme in raid. saves burning money in the cloud. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Simplifying Containers with Cloudflare Sandboxes](https://daily.dev/posts/simplifying-containers-with-cloudflare-sandboxes-q0fdylxh1) · Kent C. Dodds · 33 upvotes · 0 comments - [How We Moved Discord Voice to the Edge](https://daily.dev/posts/how-we-moved-discord-voice-to-the-edge-xeeigwjrp) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Streamline: custom video pipelines with Cloudflare Stream and Workers](https://daily.dev/posts/streamline-custom-video-pipelines-with-cloudflare-stream-and-workers-9beia9yyw) · Cloudflare · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [How Cloudflare Eliminates Cold Starts for Serverless Workers](https://daily.dev/posts/how-cloudflare-eliminates-cold-starts-for-serverless-workers-cy0axotzo) · ByteByteGo · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Modular Edge Computing at Multi-Tenant SaaS Scale on Cloudflare Workers](https://daily.dev/posts/modular-edge-computing-at-multi-tenant-saas-scale-on-cloudflare-workers-zgtnvgdda) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#backend](https://daily.dev/tags/backend), [#cloudflare](https://daily.dev/tags/cloudflare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/offloading-ffmpeg-with-cloudflare-gzqcadrcc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Offloading FFmpeg with Cloudflare","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/offloading-ffmpeg-with-cloudflare-gzqcadrcc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/offloading-ffmpeg-with-cloudflare-gzqcadrcc"},"datePublished":"2026-03-09T21:50:46.551Z","dateModified":"2026-03-10T18:00:20.432Z","description":"Kent C. 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