Use case · Web & apps
Container registries
A container registry stores and distributes container images — the packaged applications that containers run. Self-hosting a private registry gives control over your images, avoids depending on public registries, and keeps proprietary images and their pull traffic on infrastructure you control. It needs storage capacity and fast pulls for deployments. EU hosting keeps your container images sovereign.
Key points
- A container registry stores and distributes the container images that containers run from.
- Self-hosting a private registry gives control and avoids depending on public registries.
- Registries are storage-heavy, as images are large and versions accumulate.
- Fast image pulls matter for deployment and CI/CD speed.
- Self-hosting on EU infrastructure keeps proprietary container images sovereign.
What is a container registry, and why host one?
A container registry stores and distributes container images — the packaged templates from which containers are run. When applications are packaged as container images, those images must be stored somewhere and made available to the systems that run containers from them, and a container registry is that store: images are pushed to it when built, and pulled from it when containers are deployed. The registry is thus a central part of a container-based workflow, holding the images and serving them to wherever containers run, from development to production.
Hosting a container registry means providing the storage and serving infrastructure a registry needs, whether a self-hosted private registry or another arrangement. A registry must store the images, which can be large and numerous, and serve them quickly to the systems pulling them, so it needs storage capacity and good performance. There are public registries and self-hosted private ones, and the choice between them affects control, privacy, and sovereignty. This page focuses on self-hosting a container registry and why an organisation might; the surrounding container tooling is covered on the Docker and Kubernetes pages, while what follows attends to the registry itself.
Why a private, self-hosted registry
Organisations self-host a private container registry for control over their images, to avoid depending on public registries, and to keep proprietary images private. Public registries are convenient for public images, but relying on them for an organisation's own images means depending on an external service, subject to its availability, rate limits, and terms, and placing the images on infrastructure the organisation does not control. A private, self-hosted registry keeps the organisation's container images on infrastructure it controls, available on its terms, and private — which matters when the images are proprietary or when dependence on an external registry is undesirable.
This control has practical benefits for organisations running containers seriously. A self-hosted registry is not subject to the rate limits or availability of a public service, so deployments and builds that pull images are not at the mercy of an external registry; the organisation's proprietary images stay private, not on a third-party platform; and the registry is under the organisation's control. For organisations whose container images are their own applications, often proprietary, and whose deployments depend on pulling those images reliably, a private self-hosted registry addresses control, privacy, and independence together. We host the infrastructure for a self-hosted private container registry, giving an organisation its own registry under its control.
Storage for a registry
A container registry is storage-heavy, because container images can be large, and the many images and their accumulating versions add up to substantial storage. Each image packages an application with its dependencies, which can be sizeable, and a registry holds many images, often with multiple versions of each retained over time, so the total storage a registry needs grows with the number of images and versions kept. Providing adequate storage capacity is therefore a primary requirement of hosting a registry, sized to the images it will hold.
Beyond capacity, the storage should be reliable, since the registry holds the images deployments depend on, and losing them would disrupt the ability to deploy. The registry's images are important — they are what runs in production — so their storage must be dependable, and often backed up, so the images are not lost. Managing the accumulation of image versions, retaining what is needed and clearing what is not, helps control the storage growth. We provide storage sized and reliable for a container registry — capacity for the images and versions it holds, dependably — so that a self-hosted registry has the storage its images need and the reliability the images deployments depend on require.
Performance: fast image pulls
A container registry's performance matters because deployments and continuous-integration pipelines pull images from it, and slow pulls slow deployments and builds. When containers are deployed, their images are pulled from the registry, and when a build or deployment pipeline runs, it may pull images too; if the registry serves images slowly, these operations wait on it, slowing deployments and builds. For organisations deploying frequently or running many builds, the speed at which the registry serves images affects how quickly they can deploy and build, making registry performance a real consideration.
Providing good registry performance means infrastructure that serves images quickly — fast storage to read the images from, good network capacity to transfer them, and adequate resources to handle the pull requests. A registry serving images from fast storage over good networking delivers them quickly to the systems pulling them, keeping deployments and builds fast. Locating the registry close to where images are pulled — the same infrastructure or network — also speeds pulls. We provide infrastructure that serves a registry's images quickly, with fast storage and good networking, so that pulling images for deployments and builds is fast, and the registry does not become a drag on how quickly an organisation can deploy and build.
Security: access control and image integrity
A container registry holds an organisation's container images, often proprietary and central to its applications, so securing the registry — controlling access and protecting the images — is important. Access control governs who can push images to the registry and pull them from it, so that only authorised parties can add or retrieve images, protecting the images from unauthorised access and the registry from unauthorised changes. Because the images are what runs in production, their integrity matters too, so that the images pulled are the correct, untampered ones.
The registry's security also involves scanning images for vulnerabilities and keeping the registry itself secure. Scanning container images for known vulnerabilities helps ensure that what is deployed does not carry known security problems, which is a valuable practice for a registry to support; and the registry itself, holding the images, must be secured against attack. Hosting a registry on secure, controlled infrastructure supports these — access control, image integrity, and vulnerability scanning — protecting the images and the deployments that depend on them. We host container registries on secure, isolated infrastructure that supports controlling access to the images and keeping the registry secure, so that an organisation's proprietary images are protected.
The registry in the build and deploy pipeline
A container registry sits in the middle of an organisation's build-and-deploy workflow, receiving images built by continuous-integration pipelines and serving them to deployments, so it connects building images to running them. When code is built into a container image, that image is pushed to the registry; when the application is deployed, the image is pulled from the registry to run; so the registry is the point through which images flow from being built to being run. This central position means the registry's reliability and performance affect the whole workflow, from build to deployment.
Hosting the registry as part of this workflow means providing infrastructure that integrates with the building and deploying around it. The registry receives images from build pipelines and serves them to deployment systems, so it should be reliably available and performant to both, and located conveniently in relation to them. A self-hosted registry on the organisation's own infrastructure can sit close to its builds and deployments, integrated into its workflow and under its control. We host container registries as part of an organisation's container workflow, on infrastructure that serves the building and deploying the registry connects, so that images flow reliably and quickly from build to deployment through a registry the organisation controls.
Sovereignty, and where VV Internet Hosting fits
A container registry holds an organisation's container images — its packaged applications, often proprietary — so where the registry runs governs those images, making sovereignty a consideration. VV Internet Hosting is incorporated in the Netherlands, within the EU, so a container registry hosted with us runs under European jurisdiction and outside the direct reach of the US CLOUD Act, keeping the images under European law and on infrastructure the organisation controls, rather than on a foreign public registry. For organisations whose container images are proprietary and to whom keeping them sovereign matters, self-hosting the registry in the EU addresses it.
We host dedicated infrastructure for a self-hosted container registry: storage sized and reliable for the images and versions it holds, fast storage and networking to serve pulls quickly, and secure, isolated infrastructure supporting access control and image security — in EU datacenters under European jurisdiction. This suits organisations self-hosting a private registry that want control over their images, independence from public registries, fast pulls for deployments and builds, and European sovereignty. We are clear about our limits: we provide the dedicated infrastructure you run your registry on, not a managed registry service. We are the dedicated, sovereign infrastructure on which you self-host a container registry — and if that fits your needs, we can host it well.
Related use cases
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Questions
Container registry, answered plainly
Common questions about hosting for Container registry.
What is a container registry?
A store that holds and distributes container images — the packaged templates from which containers are run. Images are pushed to the registry when built and pulled from it when containers are deployed. It's a central part of a container workflow, holding the images and serving them to wherever containers run, from development to production.
Why self-host a private container registry?
For control over your images, independence from public registries, and privacy for proprietary images. A private registry isn't subject to a public service's rate limits or availability, keeps your own application images off a third-party platform, and stays under your control — which matters when the images are proprietary and your deployments depend on pulling them reliably.
Why do registry performance and storage matter?
Registries are storage-heavy, since images are large and versions accumulate, so they need capacity and reliable storage for images deployments depend on. Performance matters because deployments and CI pipelines pull images from the registry — slow pulls slow deployments and builds. Fast storage and good networking keep pulls fast, so the registry doesn't drag on how quickly you deploy.
Planning Container registry infrastructure?
We host dedicated, EU-sovereign infrastructure sized to your workload — and we will tell you plainly when something else fits better. Tell us what you're building.