# Northflank review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Container platform for services, jobs, databases and GPUs Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. 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. - **Category:** Web Hosting - **Made by:** Northflank - **Website:** https://northflank.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Tight if you stay on Sandbox: 2 services, 2 jobs and 1 database. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## 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. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **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 | $12 per 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 https://northflank.com/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Northflank before buying. ## 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. ## Good for - Teams that want container hosting billed by the second - Companies that want to run in their own AWS, Google Cloud or Azure account - Developers testing on a free tier before paying ## 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. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. 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. - **Value for money: C.** $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. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Sandbox is free with no card: 2 services, 2 jobs, 1 database, always on, up to $20 of resources a month. - **Features: B.** Services, jobs, Postgres and Redis, autoscaling, RBAC, GPUs and bring-your-own-cloud. The listing names no core gap. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You configure services, builds and cloud accounts. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, Postgres, Redis and an SDK. These are ToolGPA's own grades. 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. ## Where it 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. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/web-hosting ## Keep it, 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. - You could make: It runs in a browser, which is where something home-made would run too. - You could not: It plugs into other products, AWS, Google Cloud and Azure among them, and has an API. - You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself. - You could not: What a company asks for before it lets staff use something: roles and permissions. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave, Nebius, Postgres, Redis **Tags:** Public API, AI features ## Alternatives - [Render](https://toolgpa.com/tools/render): Cloud hosting for web services, databases and workers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/northflank-vs-render) - [Railway](https://toolgpa.com/tools/railway): App and database hosting billed by the second for usage. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/northflank-vs-railway) - [Fly.io](https://toolgpa.com/tools/fly-io): Virtual machines and databases in 18 regions, billed per second. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/fly-io-vs-northflank) - [Koyeb](https://toolgpa.com/tools/koyeb): Serverless platform for apps, APIs and GPU workloads. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/koyeb-vs-northflank) - [DigitalOcean](https://toolgpa.com/tools/digitalocean): Cloud servers, app hosting and managed databases for developers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-northflank) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://northflank.com/pricing Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/northflank Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).