Northflank review (2026): is the free plan enough?
Container platform for services, jobs, databases and GPUs
Black Friday: is there a Northflank sale?
Northflank report card
Good · out of 4.0 · graded Nov 12, 2026
Best for containers billed by the second, or in your own cloud
Northflank runs services, jobs and databases with per-second billing and a free Sandbox tier. Sandbox stops at 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database, and SAML, SCIM and audit logging are Enterprise only.
Who Northflank is for
- Fits if you want container hosting billed by the second
- Works for teams that want to run in their own AWS, Google Cloud or Azure account
Who Northflank is not for
- Tight if you stay on Sandbox: 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database
- Watch out: SAML, SCIM and audit logging need Enterprise
- Watch out: egress is $0.06 per GB on Northflank Cloud
- Pricey if you size up, as the $12 figure is only the smallest compute plan
Why Northflank gets a 2.6
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- CValue for money$12 a month for the smallest plan, billed by the second, with a 2 vCPU, 4 GB plan at $48. Egress is $0.06 per GB on Northflank Cloud.
- BFree plan and trialSandbox is free with no card: 2 services, 2 jobs, 1 database, always on, up to $20 of resources a month.
- BFeaturesServices, jobs, Postgres and Redis, autoscaling, RBAC, GPUs and bring-your-own-cloud. The listing names no core gap.
- CEase of useNo store rating on record. You configure services, builds and cloud accounts.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb only, with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, Postgres, Redis and an SDK.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Northflank's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
Make Northflank? Put this grade on your site
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<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/northflank#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/northflank.svg" alt="Northflank: 2.6 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Northflank stands among web hosts
Northflank's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 51 of the 54 other web hosts we grade, and level with 1.
It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 49 of 54) and worst on value for money (C, above 5).
Its paid plans start at $12 a month, against a middle price of $9 for the category: 33 of the 52 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 55 web hosts we grade, cut by the letter each got. Northflank’s own letter is outlined.
- CValue for moneyAbove 5 of 54, level with 21
- BFree plan and trialAbove 49 of 54, level with 5
- BFeaturesAbove 29 of 54, level with 25
- CEase of useAbove 9 of 54, level with 45
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 24 of 54, level with 30
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 53 web hosts. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Keep Northflank, or make your own?
Your call
Northflank sits between: not beyond making, and not a weekend's work either.
What you would give up is listed below. Whether that is worth the price is your call. It costs $144 a year.
What you could make
- It runs in a browser, which is where something home-made would run too.
What you could not
- It plugs into other products, AWS, Google Cloud and Azure among them, and has an API.
- AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
- What a company asks for before it lets staff use something: roles and permissions.
- The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.
What this rests on. Northflank’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is Northflank?
Northflank runs containerized services, scheduled jobs and databases on its own cloud or in a cloud account you own. Billing is by the second with no seat fees, and a free Sandbox tier covers small projects. The pricing page also lists GPU instances, builds from Git and a Platform SDK.
Worth knowing
- Network egress is $0.06 per GB on Northflank Cloud, and ingress is free.
- The Sandbox tier is capped at 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database.
- SAML, SCIM and audit logging need the Enterprise plan.
- The price depends on what you run; the monthly figures on the page are for always-on compute.
Key features
- Bring your own cloud
- Workloads can run on Northflank Cloud or in your own cloud account, where compute is billed at $0.02083 per node vCPU hour.
- Per-second billing
- Every resource is billed by the second, with no seat fees and unlimited users on the paid plan.
- GPUs
- GPUs on Northflank Cloud range from an L4 at $0.80 an hour to a B200 at $5.87 an hour, and BYOC GPUs are billed at $1.00 per GB of VRAM a month.
- Databases and storage
- Postgres and Redis databases are listed, with NVMe persistent disk at $0.11657 per GiB a month.
- Autoscaling and RBAC
- Autoscaling, role-based access control and a Platform SDK are included on pay-as-you-go.
- Bill estimator
- A calculator on the pricing page estimates a month's bill from a chosen mix of services, databases and sizes.
Northflank pricing
As of Nov 12, 2026, Northflank has a free plan, and paid plans start at $12 per month for 0.5 vCPU and 1 GB, billed by the second.
- Starts at
- $12 per month for 0.5 vCPU and 1 GB, billed by the second
- Free plan
- Sandbox: free, no card needed, with 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database, up to $20 a month of resources on Northflank Cloud, and 1 bring-your-own-cloud cluster up to 12 vCPU and 48 GB.
- Free trial
- None listed
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox | $0 | 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database, always on with no sleeping, and up to $20 a month of resources. |
| Pay as you go | $12per month for the smallest compute plan, billed by the second | Unlimited users, deployments and workloads. Compute is $0.01667 per vCPU hour, memory $0.00833 per GB hour; the page shows a 2 vCPU, 4 GB plan at $48 a month. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Platform fee, usage, support and SLA: your own VPC or air-gapped setup, SAML, SCIM, audit logging and a dedicated Slack channel. |
Read from northflank.com on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Northflank before you buy.
Works with
- AWS
- Google Cloud
- Azure
- Oracle
- CoreWeave
- Nebius
- Postgres
- Redis
Northflank alternatives
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- Northflank vs Fly.io
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- Northflank vs Koyeb
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- Northflank vs DigitalOcean
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Common questions
Does Northflank have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Northflank is listed for Web.
Does Northflank have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Northflank is listed for Web.
Is Northflank open source?
Northflank is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Nov 12, 2026.
Does Northflank have an API?
Yes. Northflank offers a public API, according to its own site.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026.