---
title: "Deno is joining Cloudflare"
description: "The Deno team is joining Cloudflare to merge workerd and celld, aiming to make self-hosting Workers and Durable Objects radically simpler for developers. Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js and Deno, explains that Durable Objects provide a powerful abstraction: a distributed singleton with a SQLite database that scales by sharding state and WebSocket connections across machines. He started celld to run this model outside Cloudflare with a single Rust binary and object storage as its only external dependency. Kenton Varda counters the theory that Workers’ unique design creates lock-in, noting that workerd is open source and that celld provides an escape hatch for migration. The merged effort, led by Ryan and Bert Belder, will make self-hosting a first-class supported way to build and run apps using the Workers programming model."
---

# Deno is joining Cloudflare

[Cloudflare](https://yomu.fyi/company/cloudflare) · Ryan Dahl · Oct 9, 2026

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

The Deno team is joining Cloudflare to merge workerd and celld, aiming to make self-hosting Workers and Durable Objects radically simpler for developers. Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js and Deno, explains that Durable Objects provide a powerful abstraction: a distributed singleton with a SQLite database that scales by sharding state and WebSocket connections across machines. He started celld to run this model outside Cloudflare with a single Rust binary and object storage as its only external dependency. Kenton Varda counters the theory that Workers’ unique design creates lock-in, noting that workerd is open source and that celld provides an escape hatch for migration. The merged effort, led by Ryan and Bert Belder, will make self-hosting a first-class supported way to build and run apps using the Workers programming model.

## Context

Self-hosting Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects has been difficult because workerd’s Durable Objects support is limited to a single instance. Ryan Dahl created celld, a Rust binary that runs the distributed Durable Objects model with only object storage as an external dependency, to enable self-hosting at scale.

## Approach / What changed

The Deno team is joining Cloudflare to merge code and ideas from celld into workerd, making self-hosting a first-class supported way to build and run apps using the Workers programming model. Ryan Dahl and Bert Belder will lead this effort.

## Takeaways

- Durable Objects provide a distributed singleton with a SQLite database that scales by sharding state and WebSocket connections across machines.
- workerd, the Cloudflare Workers runtime, is open source and has been used by customers to migrate away from Cloudflare.
- The merged celld and workerd effort aims to make self-hosting Workers and Durable Objects radically simpler, with a single binary and object storage.

## FAQ

### Why is the Deno team joining Cloudflare?

To merge celld and workerd to make self-hosting Workers and Durable Objects radically simpler. The Deno team's celld was designed for self-hosting at scale, and Cloudflare wanted to improve self-hosting support.

### Is Cloudflare Workers designed to create lock-in?

No, Kenton Varda argues that Workers is different because it is better, and the runtime is open source. Customers have migrated away using workerd, proving there is an escape hatch.

### What is celld?

celld is a Rust binary created by Ryan Dahl that implements the Workers and Durable Objects model for self-hosting, with object storage as its only external dependency. It is designed to be scalable and easy to operate.

**Tags:** [Cloudflare](https://yomu.fyi/topic/cloudflare), [Deno](https://yomu.fyi/topic/deno), [Durable Objects](https://yomu.fyi/topic/durable-objects), [Open Source](https://yomu.fyi/topic/open-source), [Workers](https://yomu.fyi/topic/workers)

- Source: [Cloudflare](https://blog.cloudflare.com/deno-joins-cloudflare)
- Source URL: https://blog.cloudflare.com/deno-joins-cloudflare
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-09T15:00:12.207Z

[Read original post](https://blog.cloudflare.com/deno-joins-cloudflare)