Northflank vs Fly.io: which deployment platform should you choose?

Fly.io is a public cloud for running applications close to users across its regions, with Firecracker microVM isolation, Anycast routing, and Fly Machines that bill by the second and can scale to zero. Northflank is a full-stack deployment and infrastructure platform that combines developer self-service with managed databases, GPU workloads, microVM-backed Sandboxes, AI coding environments, and customer-controlled infrastructure through BYOC and BYOK, alongside a fully managed cloud option.

Both platforms support microVM-based workloads, global deployments, and AI agent use cases, but Northflank covers a broader layer of the application stack. Fly.io is built around globally distributed Machines running on Fly infrastructure, while Northflank gives teams a unified platform for services, jobs, databases, GPUs, isolated execution, previews, and infrastructure management across managed cloud and their own cloud environments. This comparison covers deployment models, developer experience, workloads, previews, networking, scaling, observability, security, pricing, and when each platform fits.

Product and plan details are current as of September 2026.

Fly.io runs workloads on its own infrastructure, with no BYOC option. Its core compute primitive is the Fly Machine, a Firecracker microVM that can be configured by region, resource size, and lifecycle through fly.toml, flyctl, and the Machines API. Fly.io also provides platform-level networking, routing, TLS termination, and health checks, while Fly Kubernetes (FKS) provides a Kubernetes interface backed by Fly Machines.

Northflank provides three deployment models: Northflank Cloud, BYOC, and BYOK. Northflank Cloud provides fully managed infrastructure across global regions, while BYOC provisions Northflank-managed Kubernetes clusters inside your AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave, Civo, or Nebius account. BYOK lets teams connect eligible existing Kubernetes clusters across public cloud, on-premises, and bare-metal environments.

This gives teams more control over where workloads run without giving up the Northflank developer experience. Teams can start on Northflank Cloud and move to BYOC or BYOK as infrastructure requirements evolve, while retaining the same platform for deployment pipelines, secrets, networking, observability, and application management.

Fly.io's developer experience centers on fly launch and fly deploy. fly launch detects the project, generates a fly.toml configuration, and deploys the application, while fly deploy handles subsequent releases. The flyctl CLI provides control over Machines, secrets, logs, volumes, scaling, and SSH access, with the Machines API available for programmatic automation.

Northflank provides Git-based deployments with CI and deployment combined by default, while allowing teams to separate them for more granular release workflows. Developers can deploy using Dockerfiles, Buildpacks, or external images, with Workflows, Preview Blueprints, Templates, GitOps, APIs, and SDKs supporting more advanced workflows.

For AI-assisted development, Northflank Skills let agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode deploy and manage workloads through the Northflank API and CLI. Harnesses add dedicated cloud coding environments with isolated resources and networking, giving teams a complete deployment and execution environment for AI coding agents.

Fly.io runs containerized workloads as Fly Machines, which can handle web applications, APIs, workers, background processes, and other long-running or one-off workloads. Persistent data can be stored using Fly Volumes, while Fly Managed Postgres, Upstash Redis, and Tigris provide managed data services.

For AI workloads, Fly also provides Sprites, persistent Firecracker-based environments designed for running coding agents and other agent workloads.

Northflank supports long-running services, workers, one-off and scheduled jobs, managed databases, caches, queues, persistent volumes, GPU workloads, and microVM-backed Sandboxes for isolated execution. Managed data services include PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, and MinIO, giving teams a broader set of application and data services within the same platform.

Northflank also supports GPU workloads on both managed cloud and customer-owned infrastructure, alongside Sandboxes for isolated code execution and Cloud Harnesses for dedicated AI coding environments. This makes Northflank a broader runtime platform for teams that need to run applications, data services, GPUs, and AI workloads together.

Fly.io does not provide preview environments as a built-in platform feature. Its documentation provides a GitHub Actions blueprint for creating ephemeral review apps for pull requests, but teams need to configure the workflow themselves.

For private networking, Fly.io uses a WireGuard-based 6PN network that connects Machines within an organisation, with .internal DNS for service discovery. Flycast provides private access to applications without exposing a public address, while custom private networks can isolate workloads or tenants.

Northflank Preview Blueprints create full-stack preview environments for pull requests, branches, or manual runs. Blueprints can provision services, databases, jobs, volumes, networking, seed workflows, and unique URLs, allowing teams to reproduce an entire application environment automatically for each preview.

For private networking, Northflank supports private ports across services, jobs, databases, and addons, along with multi-project networking, network policies, egress controls, Tailscale integration, IP policies, and path-level security rules.

Fly.io provides two main autoscaling approaches. Proxy-based autostop/autostart stops idle Machines and starts them when traffic returns, while the metrics-based autoscaler can create or remove Machines based on workload metrics. This supports both scale-to-zero workloads and applications that need Machines added or removed based on demand.

Fly.io also provides application and infrastructure observability through Prometheus and Grafana, live logs with fly logs, searchable log history, and log export integrations. Developers can monitor Machines and workloads directly through Fly's tooling.

Northflank autoscaling supports CPU, memory, requests per second, and custom Prometheus metrics, with configurable minimum and maximum instance counts. BYOC adds infrastructure-level controls including node-pool autoscaling, spot capacity, workload affinity, and build placement, while custom resource plans let platform teams standardize compute resources across workloads.

Northflank provides logs and metrics for builds, deployments, jobs, and addons through the platform and API. Log sinks let teams forward logs to external providers, Amazon S3, and HTTP endpoints, making it easier to integrate Northflank into an existing observability stack.

Fly.io is SOC 2 compliant, with HIPAA BAA support available as a $99/month add-on. SSO is supported through Google and GitHub, while scoped macaroon tokens provide expiring API credentials for CI/CD. Fly.io's organisation RBAC has two roles: Member and Admin.

For teams that need granular project or resource permissions, or enterprise identity providers such as Okta and Entra ID, Fly.io's built-in controls are more limited and may require additional tooling.

Northflank is SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliant, with Enterprise BAAs. RBAC provides granular permissions across organisations, teams, projects, and resources, while SAML or OIDC SSO and directory sync support enterprise identity providers. Audit logs provide visibility across organisation and resource activity and can be exported to SIEM systems.

Northflank Enterprise adds contractual uptime guarantees, engineering support, custom disaster recovery, and forward-deployed or air-gapped control plane options for regulated environments. For enterprises with strict identity, governance, or infrastructure requirements, Northflank provides a broader set of controls without requiring teams to build the missing pieces around the platform.

Fly.io bills infrastructure based on the resources your applications provision, with Machine compute billed by the second. A shared-cpu-1x Machine with 256 MB RAM costs approximately $1.94 per month when running continuously, while storage, network transfer, and Managed Postgres are billed separately. Fly.io also offers optional paid support from $29 per month and a $99 per month Compliance add-on.

Northflank Cloud charges $0.01667 per vCPU-hour and $0.00833 per GB-hour, billed per second with no seat fees on Pay-as-you-go. The free Sandbox tier includes two services, one database, and two cron jobs. With BYOC, Northflank charges $0.01389 per vCPU-hour and $0.00139 per GB-hour. At the same time, your cloud provider bills the underlying infrastructure directly, allowing teams to retain applicable cloud credits, commitments, and negotiated rates.

Northflank can be significantly cheaper for teams running multiple workloads because there is no separate platform or seat charge on Pay-as-you-go. Its pricing also covers a broader application platform, including services, jobs, databases, previews, autoscaling, and observability, while BYOC lets teams use their existing cloud infrastructure and pricing agreements. For total cost of ownership, compare compute, storage, databases, networking, previews, GPUs, and any additional support or infrastructure costs across both platforms.

Northflank is built for teams that need broader infrastructure options, including managed databases, GPUs, Sandboxes, BYOC, BYOK, and enterprise controls. Fly.io focuses on globally distributed applications running on its own infrastructure.

No. Fly.io workloads run on Fly.io's infrastructure, while Northflank supports BYOC across multiple cloud providers and BYOK for eligible Kubernetes clusters.

Fly.io provides Managed Postgres, Upstash Redis, and Tigris, while Northflank provides PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, and MinIO as managed platform services.

Northflank provides granular RBAC, SAML/OIDC SSO, audit logs, BYOC/BYOK, and forward-deployed or air-gapped deployment options for enterprise environments.