Northflank vs Public Cloud: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Northflank and Public Cloud to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Northflank
7.2/10
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.
Public Cloud
6.1/10
OpenStack-based pay-as-you-go IaaS from Swiss host Infomaniak. It offers instances, block and S3-compatible object storage, and Kubernetes, all hosted in Swiss data centers.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.2/10 | 6.1/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 5/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 3/10 |
| Scalability | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Sandbox | Contact for pricing |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Northflank vs Public Cloud cost by team size
| Team size | Northflank | Public Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeSandbox | Contact for pricing |
| 5 users | FreeSandbox | Contact for pricing |
| 10 users | FreeSandbox | Contact for pricing |
| 25 users | FreeSandbox | Contact for pricing |
| 50 users | FreeSandbox | Contact for pricing |
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 Northflank
- Has a free plan (Public Cloud does not)
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (6/10 vs 3/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose Public Cloud
- Higher Cost score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
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.
Public Cloud
Pros
- Owned data centers located only in Switzerland, which supports data-sovereignty requirements
- Built on standard OpenStack, so existing tooling works and moving to another provider is easier
- Hourly billing that excludes most charges for stopped instances
- CHF 300 of free credit for the first 3 months
- S3-compatible object storage, encrypted block storage and DDoS protection
Cons
- All regions are in Switzerland, so there is no wider geographic footprint
- Invoices can only be paid by credit card
- Third-party benchmarks note missing monitoring charts and reverse DNS
- Very few independent user reviews on G2 or Capterra
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Northflank scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.2/10 against 6.1/10 for Public Cloud. The largest gap is in Analytics: 6/10 for Northflank and 3/10 for Public Cloud.
Northflank has a free plan; Public Cloud does not list one.
Northflank is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 5/10 for Public Cloud.
