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Cloud · head to head

Cerebrium vs Qovery

Cerebrium logo

Cerebrium

Cloud

Serverless GPU infrastructure for real-time AI inference and applications

From
Free
Rated
-
Qovery logo

Qovery

Cloud

Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account

From
On request
Rated
-

The short version

  • Only Cerebrium has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Cerebrium free Hobby tier limited to 3 apps and 5 GPU concurrency; Qovery no plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • They diverge on capability: Cerebrium covers Ultra-fast cold starts, Qovery covers Bring your own cloud.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cerebrium and Qovery actually diverge.

Attributes where Cerebrium and Qovery differ
AttributeCerebriumQovery
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelFreemium with monthly plans and per-second compute chargesquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsCloud, DockerWeb, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Cerebrium

  • Ultra-fast cold starts
  • Elastic scaling
  • Bring your own code
  • Multi-region failover
  • WebSocket and streaming
  • Asynchronous jobs
  • CI/CD with gradual rollouts
  • OpenTelemetry integration

Only in Qovery

  • Bring your own cloud
  • Preview environments
  • Cluster lifecycle
  • Terraform provider
  • MCP server
  • Policy as code

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Cerebrium

  • Deploying voice agents and conversational AI applicationsnot Qovery
  • Video and image model serving with low latencynot Qovery
  • LLM inference and completion endpointsnot Qovery
  • Real-time embeddings and vector database operationsnot Qovery
  • Distributed model training with hyperparameter sweepsnot Qovery

Qovery

  • A regulated business that must keep application data inside its own AWS account but has nobody to build a deployment platformnot Cerebrium
  • Giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining Terraform and Helm by handnot Cerebrium
  • Standardising deployment across AWS and GCP when acquisitions have left the organisation on two cloudsnot Cerebrium
  • Replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reachnot Cerebrium

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Cerebrium

  • Free Hobby tier limited to 3 apps and 5 GPU concurrency
  • Standard plan at $100/month required for production deployments
  • Per-second compute pricing requires continuous cost monitoring
  • Storage costs add up for large model files

Qovery

  • No plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • The GPL-3.0 engine and console do not constitute a self-hostable product, because the control plane and API are closed and the self-hosted option is gated behind Enterprise, so the open licence gives you no exit if the company changes direction.
  • Qovery provisions managed Kubernetes into your account, which means the cloud bill sits on top of the licence and Qovery initiates control plane and ingress controller upgrades on infrastructure your team is accountable for.
  • The company repositioned to agentic infrastructure in June 2026 and now ships a deployment platform, a browser development portal and autonomous coding agents concurrently, so a buyer of the deployment product is not at the centre of the roadmap.
  • Team and Business are capped at two and three connected clusters with fixed 4 vCPU CI runners and no single sign-on on Team, which pushes teams of moderate size onto quoted Enterprise pricing earlier than the plan names imply.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cerebrium

Free
  • HobbyFree
    • 3 user seats
    • Up to 3 deployed apps
    • 5 GPU concurrency
  • Standard$100/month
    • Unlimited seats and apps
    • 30 GPU concurrency
    • Custom domains
  • Enterprise$undefined/custom
    • Unlimited resources
    • Volume discounts
    • Dedicated support
  • GPU Compute$undefined/per-second
    • T4: $0.000164/s
    • H100: $0.00167/s

Qovery

On request
  • Team$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 10 users, up to 100 environments, 2 connected clusters
    • 5,000 deployment minutes and 7 day audit logs
  • Business$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 20 users, up to 250 environments, 3 connected clusters
    • 10,000 deployment minutes and 30 day audit logs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom users, environments and clusters
    • Self-hosted or air-gapped control plane
    • On-premises and bring-your-own-Kubernetes

Which should you pick?

Choose Cerebrium if

  • You need ultra-fast cold starts.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Cloud, Docker.
  • You also want elastic scaling.

Choose Qovery if

  • You need bring your own cloud.
  • You work on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
  • You also want preview environments.

Questions people ask

Is Cerebrium or Qovery better?
Neither clearly leads. Cerebrium starts at Free and Qovery at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cerebrium or Qovery?
Cerebrium has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cerebrium and On request for Qovery.
Does Cerebrium or Qovery run on more platforms?
Cerebrium runs on Cloud, Docker. Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
Can I use Cerebrium for free?
Yes. Cerebrium has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.
What is Cerebrium best used for?
Cerebrium is most often used for deploying voice agents and conversational ai applications, video and image model serving with low latency, llm inference and completion endpoints, real-time embeddings and vector database operations. Of those, deploying voice agents and conversational ai applications and video and image model serving with low latency are not what Qovery is typically brought in for.
What can Cerebrium do that Qovery cannot?
Cerebrium covers Ultra-fast cold starts, Elastic scaling, Bring your own code, Multi-region failover. Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cerebrium: Is Cerebrium only for inference or can it train models?

Cerebrium supports both inference serving and model training with hyperparameter sweeps. It enables deployment of voice agents, LLMs, video models, and other AI applications.

Source
Qovery: Does Qovery run my applications on its own servers?

No. It provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway account, so compute and data stay with your cloud provider and that bill is entirely separate from the Qovery licence.

Cerebrium: How do the cold starts compare to other platforms?

Cerebrium achieves 2-4 second cold starts through memory and GPU snapshotting, significantly faster than traditional 30+ second cold boots. This is competitive with platforms like Beam Cloud.

Source
Qovery: Can I self-host Qovery?

Only on Enterprise. The deployment engine and console are GPL-3.0, but the control plane is closed source and the self-hosted and air-gapped deployments are commercial Enterprise features.

Cerebrium: What compliance certifications does Cerebrium have?

Cerebrium maintains SOC 2 Type II compliance, HIPAA certification, GDPR compliance, and ISO certification. It provides gVisor container isolation and configurable data residency for regulated workloads.

Source
Qovery: What does it cost?

Qovery does not publish a rate card. Team and Business are billed on usage and quoted through sales, and Enterprise is fully custom. There is a 14 day trial with no card required.

Qovery: What survives if I stop paying?

The Kubernetes cluster and the workloads keep running in your cloud account, but you lose the console, the deployment pipeline, preview environments and every process built on top of them.

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