Northflank
Last verified 2026-07-26
Northflank offers the lowest published vCPU rate in our table ($0.01667/vCPU-hr), with a choice of Kata or gVisor isolation, unlimited session length, any OCI image, BYOC/VPC across major clouds, and GPUs. It processes 2M+ isolated workloads a month. (Note: Northflank also publishes many of the category comparison posts, so treat its own "best overall" framing accordingly.)
Key specs
| Isolation | Kata / gVisor microVM (selectable) |
| Cold start | 300ms |
| Price / vCPU-hr | $0.01667 |
| Pricing model | Usage-based |
| GPU | H100 ~$2.74/hr |
| Session limit | Unlimited |
| Persistence | Persistent volumes |
| Languages | any (OCI image) |
| MCP support | n/a |
| Integrations | REST/API |
| Deployment | Managed + BYOC/VPC (AWS/GCP/Azure/Oracle) |
| Free tier | Free trial |
| vCPU rate | $0.01667/hr |
| Throughput | 2M+ workloads/mo |
Strengths
- Lowest published vCPU rate
- BYOC/VPC
- Unlimited sessions
- Any OCI image + GPU
Trade-offs
- Less agent-SDK-specific tooling
- Broader platform, steeper setup
Best for: Cost-sensitive teams and enterprises needing BYOC and unlimited sessions.
How Northflank works
Northflank runs each sandbox as a microVM, and you pick the isolation layer yourself: Kata or gVisor. It takes any OCI image, so the environment is whatever you can put in a container, and sessions run without a duration cap. Cold start lands around 300ms, state lives on persistent volumes, and GPUs including H100 are available. You can run it managed or bring your own cloud across AWS, GCP, Azure and Oracle. It suits teams that already think in containers and want infrastructure control rather than an agent-specific SDK.
Pricing in practice & watch-outs
At $0.01667 per vCPU-hour, Northflank has the lowest published core rate in our table, and usage-based billing plus unlimited sessions makes it attractive for long-running or cost-sensitive work. The catch is assembly. There is no agent-specific SDK here, just a REST API, so wiring up snapshots, evals or agent plumbing falls to you. It is a broad platform, and the setup curve is steeper than a drop-in sandbox. One more thing: Northflank publishes many of the category comparison posts, so read its best-overall framing with that in mind.
Head-to-head
Alternatives to Northflank
See the full Northflank alternatives comparison →
Sources: Northflank pricing ↗
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