Two good routes to your own cloud
Northflank is the closest product to Ankra that many teams evaluate. It runs services, jobs, databases and preview environments, on Northflank’s cloud or inside your own cloud account. It is polished for developers, and it is strong on AI workloads with GPUs and sandboxes for untrusted code.
Ankra covers the same ground from the platform side. It builds the Kubernetes cluster on the provider you pick, delivers your applications and platform add-ons, and then keeps operating it all with security ranking, cost, backups and AI.
The practical differences are where each product can create a cluster, and how much of the operating work after the first deploy is built in.
Where the cluster comes from
Northflank’s bring-your-own-cloud route creates clusters on EKS, GKE, AKS, Oracle OKE, Civo, CoreWeave and, since September 2026, Nebius, with node autoscaling. Anything else is imported. Its documentation recommends importing a new, dedicated cluster with Cilium, and on imported clusters Northflank does not provision or autoscale nodes.
Ankra builds kubeadm or k3s clusters on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean, AWS EC2 and Proxmox VE, with a private network, a bastion and the storage driver. It creates six provider-run services, including EKS, GKE and AKS, and imports any conformant cluster, production clusters included. On clusters it builds, it handles upgrades, node groups and power schedules, with node autoscaling on the five public clouds.
If your infrastructure plan is Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud or private servers, this is the biggest difference. Northflank expects you to build and scale those clusters yourself. Ankra builds and runs them.
Shipping your code
Both products take a repository to a running service with previews. Northflank builds from a Dockerfile or Buildpacks, runs release flows with approval steps, and includes full-stack preview environments on every plan. Its release flows are more mature than Ankra’s today.
Ankra’s Applications analyse your repository and open a setup pull request with build files. Ankra Pipelines run tests, rootless builds and Semgrep, Checkov and Trivy scans in your own cluster, and a policy gate decides which image may be published. Pull-request previews give each change its own environment. Applications and previews work with GitHub repositories, and in-pipeline approval stages do not run yet.
Databases and platform add-ons
Northflank’s managed databases are a strength. Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB and Redis come with backups and point-in-time recovery.
Ankra’s stacks install any Helm chart or manifest in dependency order, such as cert-manager, an ingress controller, an operator or a monitoring stack, and stack profiles version that setup across environments. Backups write volumes and database dumps to a bucket you own. Ankra’s own managed services, including PostgreSQL, are in closed beta.
Operating what runs
Northflank isolates workloads in microVMs by default and holds SOC 2 Type 2. We found no image vulnerability scanning in its public documentation.
Ankra’s Security Center lists vulnerabilities in running workloads across every cluster and ranks them by CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue and FIRST’s EPSS scores, with SBOMs and compliance evidence. Cloud Cost estimates spend per namespace and stack and reprices a whole cluster on other providers. Ankra itself is not yet audited for SOC 2.
AI that runs code, or AI that runs the platform
Northflank’s AI work is about giving agents a safe place to run. Sandboxes execute AI-generated code in microVMs, and Harnesses run coding agents in managed workspaces.
Ankra’s AI operates the platform. It analyses firing alerts with AI Insights, reviews pull requests and opens fix pull requests through the AI Gateway, and drafts stacks from a description. Every write waits for a person by default, and an MCP server lets your own tools use the same operations.
When to choose Ankra, and when to choose Northflank
Choose Ankra when you want Kubernetes on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean or Proxmox VE built and operated for you, need to bring existing production clusters, or want fleet security ranking, cost repricing and AI operations in the same product.
Choose Northflank when
- your cloud is AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave or Nebius and you want a polished developer platform on it
- managed databases and mature release flows matter most
- you run GPU or AI workloads and need sandboxes for untrusted code
- you need a vendor with SOC 2 Type 2 today
Compare the work that remains
- Create the foundation. On your target provider, record who builds the cluster and who scales its nodes.
- Ship a release. Include tests, scans, a preview and a rollback.
- Add a platform component. Install an operator or monitoring stack and note how it is versioned.
- Investigate a vulnerability. Find every affected workload.
- Compare total cost. Northflank adds no fee for running in your own cloud on its pay-as-you-go plan. Ankra charges per managed worker vCPU after the first 30 free. Include the infrastructure and the work each route leaves to you.
See Northflank’s pricing and Ankra’s pricing.
Reviewed 9 October 2026 against Northflank’s documentation, pricing and changelog to September 2026. Product scope and plans can change.