Which Container Registry Should You Use for Production Deployments?

Use your cloud provider's container registry for production deployments. Storing images in the same network as your servers eliminates cross-provider egress costs, keeps pull latency under 100 ms, and avoids the rate limits that throttle Docker Hub and other standalone registries. If your servers run on DigitalOcean, use DigitalOcean Container Registry. If they run on AWS, use ECR. The pattern is simple: your images should live where your workloads run.

This article compares the major container registry options side by side and explains why a cloud-provider registry is the best default choice for production.

What is a container registry and why does the choice matter?

A container registry is a server that stores and distributes container images — the packaged artifacts produced by docker build. Every time you deploy an application, your orchestrator (Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, or a simple docker pull on a VM) fetches the image from a registry.

The registry you choose directly affects three things:

1. Deployment speed. Images can be hundreds of megabytes. Pulling from a registry in a different continent adds seconds (or minutes) to every deployment.
2. Reliability. If your registry goes down, you cannot deploy. A registry outage becomes an application outage if you need to scale or restart containers.
3. Cost. Data transfer between cloud providers is not free. Pulling images from Docker Hub into AWS, for example, incurs egress charges on Docker Hub's side and ingress processing on AWS. Using the same provider's registry avoids this entirely.

If you are new to working with containers, you might want to start with setting up your local development environment using Docker and Docker Compose before choosing a registry for production.

What are the main container registry options?

Container registries fall into two categories: standalone registries (independent services not tied to a specific cloud provider) and cloud-provider registries (built into the cloud platform where your servers run).

Standalone registries

• Docker Hub — The default registry. Hosts the most widely used public images (Nginx, Redis, Alpine, Ubuntu). Free tier includes 1 private repository.
• GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) — Integrated with GitHub. Free for public images. Private images use your GitHub plan's storage quota.
• Quay — Red Hat's registry. Strong security scanning. Free for public repositories.
• GitLab Container Registry — Built into GitLab. Free with your GitLab instance. Useful if your CI/CD already runs on GitLab.

Cloud-provider registries

• AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) — Private and public repositories. Integrated with ECS, EKS, and IAM.
• Google Cloud Artifact Registry — Supports Docker, Maven, npm, and more. Integrated with GKE and Cloud Build.
• DigitalOcean Container Registry — Simple pricing, integrated with DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS).
• Scaleway Container Registry — Generous free tier (75 GB). Integrated with Scaleway Kapsule.

Comparison table

Why did I stop using Docker Hub?

Docker Hub is the first registry most developers encounter, and I used it for years out of habit. It hosts every major public image and has a straightforward interface.

But Docker Hub has limitations that make it problematic for production workloads:

• Unauthenticated pulls are capped at 100 per 6 hours per IPv4 address (or per /64 IPv6 prefix). In a Kubernetes cluster where multiple nodes share a NAT gateway, this limit is hit quickly.
• Authenticated pulls on the free plan are capped at 200 per hour. During a rolling deployment across multiple pods, this can throttle image pulls and slow down or fail deployments.
• Only 1 private repository on the free plan. Any real production setup needs multiple private images.
• No region selection. Docker Hub stores images in a single location. If your servers run in Europe or Asia-Pacific, every pull crosses the Atlantic or Pacific.

These constraints made me rethink where I store production images.

What should you look for in a container registry?

Before comparing specific services, define what matters for production use:

1. Bandwidth and latency. Images must be pulled quickly during deployments. A slow registry means slow deployments, and slow deployments mean longer rollbacks when something goes wrong.
2. High availability. If the registry is down, you cannot deploy, scale, or restart containers. Your registry must have the same uptime expectations as your production infrastructure.
3. Rate limits. Strict pull limits (like Docker Hub's) can cause deployment failures during high-traffic events — scaling events, rollbacks, or multi-service deployments.
4. Cost. Storage is usually cheap. The real cost is data transfer (egress). Cross-provider transfers add up fast at scale.
5. Garbage collection. Old image tags accumulate. Without automatic cleanup, storage costs grow indefinitely. The best registries support lifecycle policies or automatic garbage collection.

Why is your cloud provider's registry the best option?

The answer comes down to network proximity and integration:

Same-network transfers are faster and cheaper. When your registry and your servers are in the same cloud provider (ideally the same region), image pulls travel over the provider's internal network. This means sub-100ms latency and zero egress charges. Pulling from an external registry like Docker Hub means traffic crosses the public internet, which is slower and often incurs data transfer fees on both sides.

Authentication is already handled. Cloud-provider registries integrate with the provider's IAM (Identity and Access Management) system. Your Kubernetes nodes can pull images using service accounts or instance roles — no need to manage Docker Hub credentials as Kubernetes secrets.

Availability is tied to the platform. If your cloud provider's region is down, your servers are down too, so registry availability is not an additional failure mode. With an external registry, you introduce a separate point of failure: your servers might be healthy but unable to pull images because Docker Hub is experiencing an outage.

No rate limits for your own images. Cloud-provider registries do not impose pull rate limits on images stored within the same account. You can scale to hundreds of pods without worrying about throttling.

Self-hosted registries (running your own registry server) are also an option, but they add operational burden — backups, TLS certificates, storage management, and monitoring — that managed registries handle for you. Unless you have strict compliance requirements, a managed cloud-provider registry is the better choice.

Which container registry should you choose?

Choose your cloud provider's registry if you are deploying to production on any major cloud platform. This is the right default for most teams:

• On AWS → Use ECR. Lifecycle policies handle garbage collection. IAM roles eliminate credential management.
• On GCP → Use Artifact Registry. Multi-region support is a bonus for global deployments.
• On DigitalOcean → Use DigitalOcean Container Registry. The Starter plan is free (500 MB). Scales simply.
• On Scaleway → Use Scaleway Container Registry. 75 GB free storage is the most generous free tier of any provider.

Choose GHCR if you are building open source or your CI pipeline runs on GitHub Actions and you want tight integration between builds and image storage — but mirror critical images to your cloud provider's registry for production pulls.

Choose Docker Hub only for distributing public images to a wide audience. It remains the canonical source for base images and community projects. Do not rely on it as your primary production registry.

This is exactly what Deckrun does automatically: when you deploy an application, Deckrun creates a container registry in your cloud provider's region, co-located with your cluster nodes. You never need to configure registry credentials, set up garbage collection, or worry about rate limits — it is handled as part of the deployment. Before pushing images, make sure your Dockerfiles follow best practices using our Dockadvisor tool.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to use Docker Hub for production deployments?

Docker Hub works for production, but its rate limits are a real risk. In a Kubernetes cluster where nodes share an IP address behind a NAT gateway, 100 unauthenticated pulls per 6 hours can be exhausted during a single rolling deployment. Authenticated accounts raise the limit but do not eliminate it. For production, use your cloud provider's registry and reserve Docker Hub for pulling public base images during builds.

Can I use multiple container registries at the same time?

Yes. A common pattern is to pull base images from Docker Hub (or GHCR) during CI builds and push the final production image to your cloud provider's registry. Kubernetes supports pulling images from multiple registries using imagePullSecrets. This gives you the ecosystem of public images without the production risk of depending on an external registry at deploy time.

How do I migrate images from Docker Hub to a cloud-provider registry?

Pull the image from Docker Hub, re-tag it with the new registry URL, and push it. For example, to migrate to DigitalOcean Container Registry: docker pull myapp:latest, then docker tag myapp:latest registry.digitalocean.com/my-registry/myapp:latest, then docker push registry.digitalocean.com/my-registry/myapp:latest. Automate this in your CI pipeline so every build pushes to the correct registry.

Do cloud-provider registries support vulnerability scanning?

Most do. AWS ECR offers built-in scanning powered by Amazon Inspector. GCP Artifact Registry integrates with Container Analysis for automated vulnerability detection. DigitalOcean and Scaleway do not currently include built-in scanning, but you can add scanning in your CI pipeline using tools like Trivy or Grype before pushing images.

What happens to my deployments if my container registry goes down?

If your registry is unavailable, Kubernetes cannot pull images for new pods. Existing running pods are unaffected. Kubernetes caches images on nodes, so pods that have already pulled the image can restart. However, scaling up or deploying new versions will fail until the registry is back. This is another reason to use your cloud provider's registry — its availability is tied to the same infrastructure your workloads depend on.