Edge Runtime vs self-hosted: handling worker lifecycle for heavier functions

Hi everyone 👋

I’m trying to better understand the intended way to deal with worker lifecycle when comparing Supabase Edge Runtime to a more traditional self-hosted setup.

In my case, I’m running:

• a few self-hosted Edge functions
• a main dispatcher that routes requests to individual functions

What I’m running into is that each request appears to behave like it spins up a fresh worker / isolate. That’s usually fine, but it becomes costly once functions have:

• non-trivial initialization
• schema loading
• external integrations

For lightweight APIs this isn’t a big issue, but for heavier workloads the overhead becomes noticeable.

I couldn’t find much documentation around controlling worker reuse or lifecycle in Edge Runtime, so I experimented with an approach where:

• workers are isolated per function
• reused while the main process stays alive
• recreated only if the worker becomes unavailable

I’m not advocating this as “the correct solution” — just trying to understand the trade-offs and what’s considered best practice.

So I’d love to hear from others:

• Is this a known limitation of Edge Runtime compared to classic self-hosted servers?
• How do you usually mitigate worker-per-request overhead?
• Is explicit worker reuse considered an anti-pattern, or just an undocumented compromise?
• Are there recommended patterns for heavier workloads on the edge?

If it helps the discussion, I can share a small example of how I’m experimenting with manual worker reuse.

Thanks!