---
title: Application Containers (self-hosted)
sidebarTitle: Application Containers
description: Langfuse uses Docker to containerize the application. The application is split into two containers (Langfuse Web and Langfuse Worker).
label: "Version: v4"
---

# Application Containers

This is a deep dive into the configuration of the application containers. Follow one of the [deployment guides](/self-hosting#deployment-options) to get started.

Langfuse uses Docker to containerize the application. The application is split into two containers:

- **Langfuse Web**: The web server that serves the Langfuse Console and API.
- **Langfuse Worker**: The worker that handles background tasks such as sending emails or processing events.

## Recommended sizing

For production environments, we recommend to use at least 2 CPUs and 4 GB of RAM for all containers.
You should have at least two instances of the Langfuse Web container for high availability.
For auto-scaling, we recommend to add instances once the CPU utilization exceeds 50% on either container.

## Node.js memory settings

The Node.js applications in Langfuse containers need to be configured with appropriate memory limits to operate efficiently. By default, Node.js uses a maximum heap size of 1.7 GiB, which may be less than the actual container memory allocation. For example, if your container has 4 GiB of memory allocated but Node.js is limited to 1.7 GiB, you may encounter memory issues.

To properly configure memory limits, set the `max-old-space-size` via the `NODE_OPTIONS` environment variable on both the Langfuse Web and Worker containers:

```bash filename=".env"
NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=${var.memory}
```

## Build container from source [#build-from-source]

While we recommend using the prebuilt docker image, you can also build the image yourself from source.

```bash
# clone repo
git clone https://github.com/langfuse/langfuse.git
cd langfuse

# checkout production branch
# main branch includes unreleased changes that might be unstable
git checkout production

# build web image
docker build -t langfuse/langfuse -f ./web/Dockerfile .

# build worker image
docker build -t langfuse/langfuse-worker -f ./worker/Dockerfile .
```

## Run Langfuse Web

See [configuration](/self-hosting/configuration) for more details on the environment variables.

```bash
docker run --name langfuse-web \
  -e DATABASE_URL=postgresql://hello \
  -e NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e NEXTAUTH_SECRET=mysecret \
  -e SALT=mysalt \
  -e ENCRYPTION_KEY=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 \ # generate via: openssl rand -hex 32
  -e CLICKHOUSE_URL=http://clickhouse:8123 \
  -e CLICKHOUSE_USER=clickhouse \
  -e CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD=clickhouse \
  -e CLICKHOUSE_MIGRATION_URL=clickhouse://clickhouse:9000 \
  -e REDIS_HOST=localhost \
  -e REDIS_PORT=6379 \
  -e REDIS_AUTH=redis \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_BUCKET=my-bucket \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_REGION=us-east-1 \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -a STDOUT \
docker.langfuse.com/langfuse/langfuse:4
```

## Run Langfuse Worker

See [configuration](/self-hosting/configuration) for more details on the environment variables.

```bash
docker run --name langfuse-worker \
  -e DATABASE_URL=postgresql://hello \
  -e NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e SALT=mysalt \
  -e ENCRYPTION_KEY=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 \ # generate via: openssl rand -hex 32
  -e CLICKHOUSE_URL=http://clickhouse:8123 \
  -e CLICKHOUSE_USER=clickhouse \
  -e CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD=clickhouse \
  -e REDIS_HOST=localhost \
  -e REDIS_PORT=6379 \
  -e REDIS_AUTH=redis \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_BUCKET=my-bucket \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_REGION=us-east-1 \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE \
  -e LANGFUSE_S3_EVENT_UPLOAD_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY \
  -p 3030:3030 \
  -a STDOUT \
docker.langfuse.com/langfuse/langfuse-worker:4
```

---

If you experience any issues when self-hosting Langfuse, please:

1. Check out [Troubleshooting & FAQ](/self-hosting/troubleshooting-and-faq) page.
2. Use [Ask AI](/ask-ai) to get instant answers to your questions.
3. Ask the maintainers on [GitHub Discussions](/gh-support).
4. Create a bug report or feature request on [GitHub](/issues).

  Enterprise-grade support is available when self-hosting Langfuse. Learn more on
  our [pricing page](/pricing-self-host).

<!-- agent-instructions -->

---

## Agent Instructions

This page is part of the [Langfuse](https://langfuse.com) documentation, published as plain Markdown for AI agents. Every page is available as Markdown by appending `.md` to its URL, or by sending an `Accept: text/markdown` header. This page: `https://langfuse.com/self-hosting/deployment/infrastructure/containers.md`.

### Querying these docs

If the answer is not on this page, query the documentation instead of guessing:

- **Semantic search** across all Langfuse docs, returning an answer with the relevant pages and excerpts. Ask a specific, self-contained question:

  ```bash
  curl -sG "https://langfuse.com/api/search-docs" --data-urlencode "query=How do I trace a LangGraph agent?"
  ```

- **Index of every page**: <https://langfuse.com/llms.txt>, with per-section indexes [llms-docs.txt](https://langfuse.com/llms-docs.txt), [llms-integrations.txt](https://langfuse.com/llms-integrations.txt), and [llms-self-hosting.txt](https://langfuse.com/llms-self-hosting.txt).

### Before writing Langfuse code

- **Install the [Langfuse Agent Skill](https://langfuse.com/docs/api-and-data-platform/features/agent-skill).** It encodes Langfuse's own best practices for instrumentation, prompt management, and evaluation, and materially improves results.
- **Read [What does a good trace look like?](https://langfuse.com/docs/observability/best-practices.md)** before instrumenting an application.
- **Verify endpoints, parameters, and response fields** against the [API reference](https://api.reference.langfuse.com) instead of inferring them from code examples.
- **Use the [Langfuse CLI](https://langfuse.com/docs/api-and-data-platform/features/cli)** (`npx langfuse-cli api <resource> <action>`) to read or write traces, prompts, datasets, and scores from the terminal.

Found an error in these docs? Please open an issue at <https://github.com/langfuse/langfuse-docs/issues>.