The disclosure provides a new content server framework in which functionalities of a content server are implemented as lightweight microservices. At startup of the content server framework, a content server container and a set of microservices are launched. The content server container only has a content server application programming interface (API) which has a controller that can instantiate controller applications, each having a master module and worker(s). When a request is received, the content server API routes it to an appropriate microservice which stores the request in a repository. The master module retrieves the request from the repository and places it in a queue. The worker picks up the request from the queue and processes it. The controller keeps track of details of each controller application container that it instantiated (e.g., load and status) and automatically scale up or down the number of instances.