Vercel now deploys a plain Dockerfile as a container, no config needed

Vercel said on October 27, 2026 that it now deploys a project that is just a Dockerfile or Containerfile at the root. When Vercel detects no other framework, it picks its Container preset, builds the image and sends all traffic to it. Container Runtime is in beta on all plans, including the free Hobby plan, and is billed like other Vercel Functions.

What changed

Vercel’s Container Runtime already ran OCI images on Vercel Functions. The change is that a plain Dockerfile is now enough, with no vercel.json setting. A few rules decide what gets built:

• If Vercel detects another framework, such as Next.js or Django, that framework wins.
• To force the container, run vercel project update --framework container or set "framework": "container" in vercel.json.
• A file named Dockerfile.vercel or Containerfile.vercel always selects the container.
• Projects with several apps can list services in vercel.json, each with its own Dockerfile.

The container must run an HTTP server. The default port is 80, and you can change it with a PORT environment variable. Instances with no traffic scale down after 5 minutes in production and 30 seconds in preview, and get a 30-second SIGTERM grace period. Secure Compute and Static IPs don’t work with custom images yet.

What it costs

Containers use the same limits and Active CPU pricing as Vercel Functions. You pay for CPU only while code runs, and for memory while an instance is handling work. Nothing is charged between requests.

Item	Hobby	Pro
Active CPU	4 hours included	$0.128/hr in Washington D.C., Cleveland and Portland; more elsewhere
Provisioned memory	360 GB-hrs included	$0.0106/GB-hr in the same regions
Invocations	1 million included	$0.60 per million

Who it affects

Developers who keep a Dockerfile for Railway, Render, Fly.io or a VPS can now try the same image on Vercel without rewriting it. Because idle instances scale to zero, this suits request-driven apps more than always-on workers. For those, Vercel points to a separate product called Daemons.

What to do

Since the runtime is in beta, test with a preview deployment first, and check your usage page after a few days of traffic. To compare always-on servers with per-request billing, see our VPS and app hosting comparison.