Gcore vs Northflank: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Gcore and Northflank to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Gcore
6.8/10
Luxembourg-based edge and cloud provider offering CDN, virtual machines, bare metal, managed Kubernetes, object storage, AI GPU cloud, and DDoS/WAF security for businesses.
Northflank
7.3/10
Northflank is a Kubernetes-based developer platform for deploying services, jobs, databases and GPU workloads on its managed cloud or on customers' own cloud accounts.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.8/10 | 7.3/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | €390/mo DDoS Protection Start | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | €390/mo DDoS Protection Start | Free Sandbox |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Managed Databases | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
Gcore vs Northflank cost by team size
| Team size | Gcore | Northflank |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | €390/moDDoS Protection Start | FreeSandbox |
| 5 users | €390/moDDoS Protection Start | FreeSandbox |
| 10 users | €390/moDDoS Protection Start | FreeSandbox |
| 25 users | €390/moDDoS Protection Start | FreeSandbox |
| 50 users | €390/moDDoS Protection Start | FreeSandbox |
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 Gcore
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Security score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Northflank
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
Gcore
Pros
- The CDN includes 1 TB of traffic and 1 billion requests free each month, and traffic after that starts at 0.01 EUR per GB.
- DDoS protection pricing does not depend on attack size, and mitigation is not metered on any plan.
- The managed Kubernetes control plane is free with high availability, so you pay only for the nodes.
- A large edge footprint, reported at about 210 PoPs and 200 Tbps of capacity, suits latency-sensitive workloads such as gaming and streaming.
- Headquarters in Luxembourg is an advantage for buyers who prefer an EU-based provider.
Cons
- Trustpilot scores are around 2.5 out of 5, with complaints about recurring billing, refunds, and slow support.
- There is no public price list for VMs and bare metal; prices are only available through the calculator.
- The Terraform v2 provider is still in alpha and Gcore says it is not ready for production.
- The product range is very broad, which can make it harder for small teams to understand how pricing works.
Northflank
Pros
- Per-second usage billing with no seat or workspace fees. Northflank's own comparison prices a 2 vCPU, 4 GB service at $48 a month, against $85 at Render.
- The same platform can run workloads in your own AWS, GCP, Azure or Civo account, or on imported Kubernetes clusters, so moving off the managed cloud does not mean switching tools.
- G2 reviewers praise fast support from engineers who know the product.
- Builds from GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket are built in, and preview environments are created for each pull request.
- GPU options run from L4 to B200, so AI workloads can sit next to ordinary services.
Cons
- SLAs, SSO, SCIM, audit logs and the WAF are only available on Enterprise.
- G2 reviewers mention a limited choice of regions and slow builds because local Docker caching is missing.
- Some Trustpilot reviewers report slow support, and the review base is small overall.
- The vendor's pricing and features pages carry a notice about a security incident and ask users to rotate their credentials.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Northflank scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 7.3/10 against 6.8/10 for Gcore. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 6/10 for Gcore and 8/10 for Northflank.
Yes, both Gcore and Northflank have a free plan.
Northflank is the better fit for startups: we rate it 8/10 for them, against 6/10 for Gcore.
