Northflank vs Qovery: which platform fits your requirements?

Qovery is a Kubernetes control plane for teams that want self-service infrastructure on their own AWS, GCP, Azure, or Scaleway account, with built-in deployment pipelines. Northflank is a full-stack deployment and infrastructure platform that combines developer self-service with managed data services, microVM sandboxes, GPU workloads, and BYOC across a broader set of cloud providers and infrastructure targets.

Both platforms eliminate the need to operate Kubernetes directly and support AI coding agent workflows. The differences are in infrastructure scope, workload types, pricing model, and how much of the operational layer each platform manages for you. 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.

Qovery is BYOC-only. It provisions and manages Kubernetes clusters in your own AWS, GCP, Azure, or Scaleway account. There is no Qovery-managed cloud option where Qovery hosts your infrastructure; your applications always run in your own cloud account, on infrastructure you own. Qovery also supports BYOK, allowing teams to connect an existing Kubernetes cluster on Enterprise.

Northflank provides three deployment models: Northflank Cloud, BYOC, and BYOK. Northflank Cloud provides fully managed infrastructure across 6+ regions for teams that do not want to manage cloud accounts. BYOC provisions Northflank-managed Kubernetes clusters in your own cloud account across AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave, Civo, and Nebius. BYOK connects eligible existing Kubernetes clusters from public clouds, on-premises, and bare-metal.

Teams can start on Northflank Cloud and move to BYOC without changing their deployment workflow. The same control plane, developer interface, and governance controls apply across all three models.

Qovery provides a self-service console where developers deploy applications by connecting a Git repository, selecting a service type, and triggering deployments without writing Kubernetes manifests. Deployment pipelines with stages allow platform teams to orchestrate ordered rollouts across services.

Its MCP server lets AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Cursor deploy and manage infrastructure through the Qovery API.

Northflank provides self-service Git-based deployments with CI and deployment combined by default, with the option to separate them for more granular release workflows. Developers can deploy using Dockerfiles, Buildpacks, or external images. Workflows, preview blueprints, Templates, and GitOps support more complex release and infrastructure workflows. The SDKs enable programmatic control beyond the dashboard and CLI.

Northflank Skills enable AI coding agents in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode to deploy and manage workloads via the Northflank API and CLI. Northflank Harnesses provide dedicated cloud coding environments where AI coding agents run in isolated, secure environments with their own resources and networking.

Qovery supports application deployments, containers, Helm charts, Terraform modules, cron jobs, and lifecycle jobs.

For data services, Qovery provisions cloud-native managed databases in the customer's cloud account, such as AWS RDS and Google Cloud SQL. Northflank provides managed database and stateful services directly through the Northflank platform alongside application workloads.

Qovery supports GPU workloads through GPU-enabled Kubernetes infrastructure in the customer's cloud, but does not provide an equivalent to Northflank's microVM Sandbox product for isolated code or agent execution.

Northflank supports long-running services, workers, one-off and scheduled jobs, managed databases and caches (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, MinIO) as first-class platform services, GPU workloads (H100, H200, A100, L4, L40S, B200), and microVM-isolated sandboxes for AI agent execution and untrusted code. Northflank also provides Harnesses dedicated cloud environments for AI coding agents.

Managed data services on Northflank run alongside application services in the same project, connected through internal private networking. There is no public endpoint required and no separate database billing relationship.

The sandbox isolation model is a meaningful difference for teams running AI agent workloads. Northflank sandboxes use Kata Containers with Cloud Hypervisor as the primary microVM approach, providing kernel-level isolation. Qovery does not have an equivalent sandbox product.

Qovery provides ephemeral preview environments that can be created from existing environments and managed with deployment rules. Teams can automatically sleep environments during specified periods and tear them down when they are no longer needed, helping control the infrastructure used by temporary environments.

For networking, Qovery provides private connectivity through the cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure where its environments run. It supports options such as VPC peering, egress filtering, and Kubernetes-level network controls for managing how applications communicate with external and internal services.

Northflank Preview Blueprints create complete, repeatable preview environments from pull requests, branches, or manual runs. A blueprint can define the services, databases, jobs, volumes, networking, and configuration required for the environment, so teams can reproduce a full application stack rather than previewing a single service.

Preview environments can also use isolated database instances and seed workflows, allowing teams to test against preview-specific data instead of sharing a staging database. This makes full-stack previews practical for applications with multiple services and stateful dependencies.

For networking, Northflank provides private ports across services, jobs, databases, and addons, along with network policies, egress controls, multi-project networking, Tailscale integration, IP policies, and path-level security rules. This gives platform teams control over how workloads communicate with each other, what they can access externally, and how private services are exposed.

Qovery uses Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaling to scale applications based on CPU or custom metrics, while Karpenter can automatically scale nodes on Qovery-managed clusters based on workload demand. Teams can also define resource requests and limits for applications and jobs.

Application logs and live metrics are included in the base plan. Deeper infrastructure observability is available through the Observe add-on at $299 per cluster per month, which adds Kubernetes events, infrastructure metrics, and additional monitoring.

Northflank supports workload-level autoscaling based on CPU, memory, requests per second, or custom Prometheus metrics, with configurable minimum and maximum instance counts. Teams can also adjust CPU and memory allocations for individual workloads.

For BYOC environments, Northflank extends these controls to infrastructure with multiple node pools, different node types, availability zones, workload placement rules, and spot instances. Custom resource plans can also standardize CPU and memory limits across workloads.

Northflank provides logs and metrics for builds, deployments, jobs, addons, and cluster resources. Log sinks can forward logs to external observability platforms and storage systems.

Qovery Business includes SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance, built-in RBAC roles, and 30-day audit log retention. Enterprise adds SSO, unlimited custom RBAC roles, policy-as-code guardrails, custom audit log retention, access to security audits and pentests, and compliance packages covering HIPAA, HDS, ISO 27001, and DORA. Enterprise also supports a self-hosted control plane that can run air-gapped.

Qovery also provides API Policy Tokens for agents and automation. These use OPA and Rego to scope tokens to specific actions and resources, with token activity attributed separately in the audit log.

Northflank is SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliant, with Business Associate Agreements available under Enterprise contracts. RBAC provides granular permissions across organisations, teams, projects, and resources, while SAML/OIDC SSO and directory sync provide centralised identity management for Enterprise customers. Audit logs can be exported to SIEM systems.

Northflank Enterprise adds contractual SLAs, direct engineering support, advanced disaster recovery, and a forward-deployed control plane that can run inside a customer-controlled VPC or data centre, including zero-egress and air-gapped environments.

Qovery uses flat per-organisation pricing. The Business plan costs $3,749 per month(or $2,999/month billed annually) and includes 20 users, up to 3 managed clusters, and 10,000 deployment minutes per month. Additional clusters cost $399 per month, custom builder size costs $150 per month, while deployment minutes above the included 10,000 are billed at $0.16 per minute. The Observe bundle is a $299 per-cluster monthly add-on, and Enterprise pricing is custom.

The underlying cloud infrastructure is billed directly by your cloud provider because Qovery runs workloads in your cloud account. This means the platform subscription and infrastructure costs are separate.

Northflank Cloud uses usage-based pricing at $0.01667 per vCPU-hour and $0.00833 per GB-hour of memory, billed per second with no seat fees on Pay-as-you-go. The free Sandbox tier also includes two services, one database, and two cron jobs with always-on compute.

For BYOC, Northflank charges $0.01389 per vCPU-hour and $0.00139 per GB-hour of memory, while your cloud provider bills the underlying infrastructure directly. This lets teams retain existing cloud credits, commitments, and negotiated infrastructure pricing.

For many teams, Northflank can be significantly cheaper because you are not paying a $3,749 ****monthly platform fee just to use the platform. Northflank's per-second billing and no-seat-fee model also means smaller, variable, or growing workloads can be priced much more directly around actual resource consumption. With BYOC, teams can further reduce infrastructure costs by using their existing cloud commitments, spot capacity, and resource controls.

It depends on your infrastructure needs, but Northflank offers a broader platform for teams running applications, managed databases, GPUs, microVM sandboxes, and AI workloads. It also supports Northflank Cloud, BYOC, and BYOK with per-second usage pricing.

Qovery starts at $3,749/month for Business, plus cloud infrastructure and optional add-ons. Northflank uses per-second usage pricing with no seat fees, which can make it significantly cheaper for teams with smaller, variable, or growing workloads.

Northflank provides managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, and MinIO as first-class platform services. This makes it easy to provision databases alongside your applications without managing separate cloud database infrastructure.

Northflank is built for AI-native workloads, with GPUs, microVM-backed Sandboxes for isolated execution, and Harnesses for dedicated AI coding environments. It also supports Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode through Northflank Skills.