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Multiple cores on Linux

info

This document is outdated. As of 4.0.137, the default behavior is to use multi-process mode.
The setting still exists, but is true by default.

By default, Remotion starts the Chromium browser on Linux with the --single-process flag. This is because:

  • The sandboxing feature of Chromium is not supported on all Linux distributions
  • Older versions of Chromium used to crash when starting headlessly with multiple processes
  • If some desktop libraries are missing, Chromium could crash on startup on some Distros.

This can lead to degraded rendering performance, especially when trying to leverage high-core CPUs and high Remotion concurrency.

Enable multi-process rendering on Linux​

available from v4.0.42

For now, this option is opt-in. To enable multi-process mode for Chromium during rendering on Linux:

  • renderMedia() / openBrowser() / renderFrames(): Use the chromiumOptions.enableMultiProcessOnLinux option.
  • CLI: Use the --enable-multi-process-on-linux flag.
  • Config file: Use the Config.setChromiumMultiProcessInLinux() option.
  • Remotion Studio: Check the toggle in the advanced settings.
  • Cloud Run: From v4.0.42, this option is automatically enabled.
  • Lambda: This option is disabled with no option to enable it because on Amazon Linux, Chrome will crash if the --single-process flag is not used. We recommend using more Lambdas instead of more concurrency per Lambda.

Should I enable multi-process mode?​

The answer depends on the Linux environment. If you are running Remotion on a server, you should try to enable multi-process mode and see if it works.

Our recommended Docker image is confirmed working with multi-process mode enabled.

See also​