Cloudflare vs Modal Comparison
Compare Cloudflare vs Modal features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
Cloudflare
7.6/10
Cloudflare is a global edge network. It offers CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and a WAF, plus serverless compute and storage (Workers, R2, D1) for developers and businesses.
Modal
6.8/10
Modal is a serverless cloud platform that runs Python code on GPUs and CPUs with per-second billing, aimed at teams building and serving AI applications.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.6/10 | 6.8/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Reliability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 6/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $5/mo Workers Paid | $250/mo Team |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free | $250/mo Team |
| Features | ||
| Object Storage | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | ||
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Cloudflare vs Modal cost by team size
Cloudflare and Modal cost the same at 1 user; Cloudflare costs less from 5 users.
| Team size | Cloudflare | Modal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree | FreeStarter |
| 5 users | FreeFree | $250/moTeam |
| 10 users | FreeFree | $250/moTeam |
| 25 users | FreeFree | $250/moTeam |
| 50 users | FreeFree | $250/moTeam |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Cloudflare
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $250/mo
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose Modal
- Higher Support score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
Cloudflare
Pros
- The free plan includes unmetered DDoS protection, a CDN, a WAF and universal SSL.
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees.
- Workers has very low entry pricing: a $5 monthly minimum and $0.30 per additional million requests.
- The Business plan adds a 100 percent uptime SLA and PCI DSS compliance for $200 a month billed annually.
Cons
- Reviewers report slow support on Free and Pro, which have no chat or phone support.
- Global outages in November and December 2025 disrupted many sites at the same time.
- Reviewers report billing problems, such as charges after cancelling add-ons.
- It offers no traditional shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers, so you still need an origin host for conventional workloads.
Modal
Pros
- GPUs from the T4 up to the B300 are available without quota requests or reservations, and workloads can burst to thousands of containers.
- Per-second billing and scale-to-zero mean idle bursty inference workloads cost nothing.
- Python developers define infrastructure in code and deploy with a single CLI command, with no Kubernetes or Dockerfiles needed.
- The free Starter plan includes $30 a month of compute, and startup and academic credit programs are available.
- Sandboxes support large numbers of concurrent isolated environments for AI agents and untrusted code.
Cons
- Always-on or steady workloads can cost more than reserved GPU rentals from providers such as RunPod or Lambda.
- Containers stay billable for 60 seconds after the last request by default, and keep-warm settings are a common source of bill surprises.
- Region pinning raises prices by 1.15 to 1.75 times, and non-preemptible execution by 3 times.
- SSO, audit logs, and HIPAA support are limited to the custom-priced Enterprise plan.
- Credits from AWS, GCP, or Azure cannot be applied to Modal usage.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudflare scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.6/10 against 6.8/10 for Modal. The largest gap is in Cost: 9/10 for Cloudflare and 5/10 for Modal.
Cloudflare costs less for 10 users: free on its Free plan, against about $250/mo on its Team plan for Modal, billed monthly.
Yes, both Cloudflare and Modal have a free plan.
