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Northflank

Apps 3.4/10

Northflank is a developer platform for deploying services, jobs and databases, with an always-on free tier that notably does not sleep.

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Northflank scores 3.4/10 for free value in Apps. The main constraint: Free tier: 2 free services, 1 free database, and 2 free cron jobs, with always-on compute (no sleeping). Intended for hobby projects, not production.

Category Apps Kind Container/app + database deployment platform Caveats Explicitly not for production use; resource sizes on the free tier are modest; newer than Heroku-class incumbents. Card required No Eligibility anyone

Free value score

3.4 / 10
Show the math
Overall 3.4/10
value = 3.4/100
weighted_components_v1
Runtime value 1/10
value = 0.1 $/mo
fixed_log_v1
Always-on fit 6/10
value = 6/100
policy_score_v1
Deploy friction 5.5/10
value = 5.5/100
policy_score_v1

Key metrics

2 Always-on services no sleep
0 GB/mo Bandwidth egress is pay-per-use at $0.06/GB; none included free
0 min/mo Build minutes build time metered by compute usage; no free allotment
n/a Function calls no serverless function product
∞ Custom domains custom domains + free TLS included on all tiers

What you get

Always-on compute — services do not sleep

2 free services included

1 free database included

2 free cron jobs included

Gotchas

  • 2 services max

    The free Developer tier is hard-capped at 2 deployable services (containers); upgrading to pay-as-you-go is required for more.

  • 1 database addon max

    Only one managed database (addon) is permitted on the free tier; additional databases require upgrading.

  • 2 cron jobs max

    The free tier includes at most 2 cron/job workloads; further scheduled jobs require a paid plan.

  • 2 projects max

    The Developer (free) tier limits the user to 2 projects to organise resources, versus unlimited on paid tiers.

  • Limited compute plans

    Free tier compute is limited to smaller shared-vCPU plans (e.g. nf-compute-10/20); vertical scaling is restricted compared to paid tiers.

  • No HA or backups on free DB

    High availability replicas, automated backups/restores, zonal redundancy, and database forking are not available on the free tier.

  • No horizontal scaling

    Running multiple replicas of services or addons (horizontal scaling) is not available on the Developer free tier.

  • Only 1 cloud provider integration

    Free tier allows linking only 1 BYOC cloud account (vs. all providers on paid), restricting multi-cloud deployments.

  • No autoscaling

    CPU/memory-based autoscaling is unavailable on the free tier; services run at a fixed replica count.

  • No SLA or dedicated support

    Free users receive best-effort support only; no SLA, no dedicated Slack channel, and no guaranteed response times.

  • Explicitly hobby/sandbox only

    Northflank labels the free tier 'Sandbox for testing and building trust' and the markdown explicitly notes it is not intended for production use.

Sources

containers database cron always-on paas
Open service Source ← All Apps

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