Techniques for managing containers based on application key performance indicators (KPIs), associated with instances of network applications executing within containers in a telecommunication network, are discussed herein. For example, a container manager can determine that an instance of the network application is underperforming a target KPI value, is otherwise experiencing problems, and/or may be likely to experience future problems. The container manager can accordingly take one or more corrective and/or preventative actions, such as to terminate and replace the container associated with the underperforming instance of the network application, or to scale out a set of containers by adding additional containers and corresponding additional instances of the network application to reduce the load on individual instances of the network application.