Northflank Free Developer Sandbox (2 Services + Database)
Source: https://northflank.com/pricing
Description
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+ 1 Northflank's Developer Sandbox is a permanently free plan aimed at hobby projects, prototypes, and trying the platform. You get 2 services, 2 cron jobs, 1 database/addon, and up to 1 BYOC cluster — meaning you can either run on Northflank's managed cloud or connect your own AWS / GCP / Azure / Oracle Cloud / CoreWeave / Civo / bare-metal account and Northflank acts purely as the orchestration layer. Services are always-on (no sleeping), deploy from any Git repo or OCI image, get free SSL + custom domains, and include API/CLI access.
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+ 7 1. Go to northflank.com/pricing and click "Get started for free" (or sign up directly at app.northflank.com)
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+ 8 2. Sign up with GitHub, GitLab, Google, or email + password
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+ 9 3. Verify your email if you used the email/password flow
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+ 10 4. Credit card is requested during sign-up as anti-abuse verification — you will not be charged unless you actively upgrade to Pay-As-You-Go. The card stays on file with no recurring billing on the Sandbox tier.
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+ 11 5. Create a project, then add up to 2 services, 2 cron jobs and 1 addon (Postgres / MySQL / MongoDB / Redis / etc.)
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+ 12 6. To use BYOC: in project settings, add an integration for AWS / GCP / Azure / Oracle / CoreWeave / Civo / bare-metal and create a cluster — Northflank deploys into your account; you pay your cloud provider directly, Northflank's platform fee on Sandbox stays $0.
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+ 14 Important:
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+ 15 • Card is required at signup. Northflank states explicitly: "you won't be charged unless you upgrade to a paid plan." This puts the friction at Rank 2, not Rank 1.
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+ 16 • The 2/2/1 quota is per account, not per project — you cannot multiply free quotas by spinning up more projects.
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+ 17 • The Sandbox is intended for hobby / pre-production usage. Production workloads belong on Pay-As-You-Go.
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+ 18 • BYOC on the Sandbox plan is real: orchestration is free, but your cloud provider still bills you for the underlying VMs / disks / egress.
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+ 24 ResourceFree Limit
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+ 25 Services2 (long-running deployments, e.g. web app, API, worker)
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+ 26 Cron jobs2 (scheduled jobs)
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+ 27 Databases / addons1 (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, etc.)
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+ 28 BYOC clustersUp to 1 (AWS / GCP / Azure / Oracle / CoreWeave / Civo / bare-metal)
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+ 29 Free egress~10 GB included (overages billed at $0.15/GB on PAYG)
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+ 30 HTTP requests~1M/month included
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+ 31 Logs10 GB
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+ 32 Metrics10 GB
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+ 33 Always-on computeYes — no sleep / cold-start hibernation
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+ 34 Free SSL + custom domainsYes
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+ 35 API & CLI accessYes
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+ 36 GitHub / GitLab / Bitbucket integrationYes (auto-deploy on push)
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+ 38 Compute is described as "limited" on Sandbox — Northflank does not publish a specific vCPU / RAM ceiling per service for the free plan. On paid plans the platform scales individual workloads from 0.1 vCPU / 256 MB up to 32 vCPU / 256 GB. Treat Sandbox services as small (think 0.1–1 vCPU, ~512 MB) and run benchmarks before committing real traffic.
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+ 44 Northflank has one of the broadest BYOC stories in PaaS. On the Sandbox plan you can connect one cluster from any of:
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+ 46 • Public clouds: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle Cloud
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+ 47 • Alternative GPU/compute clouds: CoreWeave, Civo
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+ 48 • On-premises / bare-metal
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+ 50 The Northflank execution plane runs inside infrastructure you own; orchestration, autoscaling and microVM provisioning happen via the Northflank control plane. Any OCI-compliant container image works without modification. This is the angle that makes the Sandbox especially interesting if you already have AWS/GCP credits sitting unused — Northflank becomes the deployment layer at $0 platform cost, you only pay the underlying cloud bill.
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+ 56 Anything you can package as an OCI/Docker image — Northflank pulls from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or any OCI-compatible registry. Common usage:
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+ 58 • Node.js / Python / Go / Rust / Ruby web apps and APIs
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+ 59 • Background workers and queue consumers
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+ 60 • Cron jobs (data syncs, scheduled scrapers, embedding refreshes)
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+ 61 • A single managed database (Postgres / MySQL / MongoDB / Redis)
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+ 62 • Self-hosted AI inference services: deploy a vLLM / Ollama / Hugging Face TGI image as a service and call it from your app (caveat: free-tier compute is small; for serious model serving use BYOC with GPU nodes from CoreWeave/AWS/GCP)
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+ 68 Developer Sandbox (free)Pay-As-You-Go
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+ 69 Services2Unlimited
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+ 70 Cron jobs2Unlimited
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+ 71 Databases1Unlimited
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+ 72 BYOC clusters1Unlimited
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+ 73 Compute sizeLimited0.1–32 vCPU, 256 MB – 256 GB
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+ 74 Card on fileYes (not charged)Yes (charged on usage)
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+ 75 Production-readyNo (hobby / prototyping)Yes
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+ 77 Upgrading is a flag flip — you stay on the same projects, just remove the quota cap.
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+ 83 If you have a student email, Northflank runs a separate Student Developer Pack that bumps the free tier to:
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+ 85 • 4 services (vs 2 on default Sandbox)
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+ 86 • Student-tier support
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+ 87
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+ 88 To claim: email students@northflank.com from your student email address (northflank.com/student-developer-pack). They follow up with the upgrade. No SheerID / form — purely email-based verification.
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+ 94 • No automatic upgrade to paid. You won't "silently" get billed when you hit the 2/2/1 limit — Northflank just refuses to create the 3rd service until you switch to PAYG.
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+ 95 • Use the BYOC angle if you've burned through Northflank's small Sandbox compute but still want free orchestration: connect an AWS account that already has AWS Activate credits, and Northflank's $0 platform fee stacks with your AWS credit.
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+ 96 • Egress is the trap on PAYG. $0.15/GB adds up fast for video/file delivery. On Sandbox you have 10 GB/month free; design around that if you're serving traffic from Northflank-managed compute (BYOC egress is billed by your cloud, not by Northflank).
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+ 97 • Permanent free. Unlike $200/30-day-style trials, the Sandbox plan is ongoing and renews indefinitely as long as you stay within the 2/2/1 quota.
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+ 98 • Region locking is per-cluster on BYOC. When you bring your own cloud, you pick the region; Northflank-managed regions are listed in-app at cluster creation time.
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+ 102 Sources:
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+ 103 • Northflank Pricing
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+ 104 • Northflank Pricing Docs
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+ 105 • Northflank Student Developer Pack
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+ 106 • Best BYOC Sandbox Platforms 2026
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+ 107 • LowEndBox: Northflank Free Tier Review
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