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Cloud · head to head

Koyeb vs Longhorn

Koyeb logo

Koyeb

Cloud

High-performance serverless infrastructure for APIs, inference, and databases

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Longhorn has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Koyeb pricing starts at $29/month with additional compute costs; Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • They diverge on capability: Koyeb covers Serverless containers, Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Koyeb and Longhorn actually diverge.

Attributes where Koyeb and Longhorn differ
AttributeKoyebLonghorn
Starting price$29/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, CLI, APILinux, 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 Koyeb

  • Serverless containers
  • GPU support
  • Global distribution
  • Multi-protocol support
  • Serverless Postgres
  • Zero-downtime deployments

Only in Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

What people use each for

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

Koyeb

  • Deploying AI inference models globally with GPU accelerationnot Longhorn
  • Building SaaS platforms with automatic scalingnot Longhorn
  • Running distributed AI agents and background workersnot Longhorn

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Koyeb
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Koyeb
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Koyeb
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot Koyeb

Where each one falls short

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

Koyeb

  • Pricing starts at $29/month with additional compute costs
  • GPU compute is expensive at $0.75-$2.50 per hour
  • Limited customization for infrastructure configuration

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

Pricing, plan by plan

Koyeb

$29/month
  • Pro$29/month
    • $10 included compute
    • 10 users
    • 100 services
  • Scale$299/month
    • $100 included compute
    • 50 users
    • 1,000 services
  • Enterprise$1000/month
    • Unlimited users
    • Custom resources
    • SSO/RBAC

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

Which should you pick?

Choose Koyeb if

  • You need serverless containers.
  • You work on Web, CLI, API.
  • You also want gpu support.
Koyeb review

Choose Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Questions people ask

Is Koyeb or Longhorn better?
Neither clearly leads. Koyeb starts at $29/month and Longhorn at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Koyeb or Longhorn?
Longhorn has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $29/month for Koyeb and Free for Longhorn.
Does Koyeb or Longhorn run on more platforms?
Koyeb runs on Web, CLI, API. Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes.
Can I use Longhorn for free?
Yes. Longhorn has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Koyeb starts at $29/month.
What is Koyeb best used for?
Koyeb is most often used for deploying ai inference models globally with gpu acceleration, building saas platforms with automatic scaling, running distributed ai agents and background workers. Of those, deploying ai inference models globally with gpu acceleration and building saas platforms with automatic scaling are not what Longhorn is typically brought in for.
What can Koyeb do that Longhorn cannot?
Koyeb covers Serverless containers, GPU support, Global distribution, Multi-protocol support. Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Koyeb: What are Koyeb's subscription plans?

Pro plan is $29/month with $10 included compute, Scale plan is $299/month with $100 included compute and 99.9% SLA, and Enterprise starts at $1,000/month with unlimited users and 99.99% SLA.

Source
Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

Koyeb: How much does GPU compute cost?

GPU pricing is per-second: RTX-A6000 costs $0.75/hour, A100 costs $1.60/hour, H100 costs $2.50/hour, and 8x H100 costs $20.00/hour.

Source
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

Koyeb: What database options are available?

Koyeb offers serverless Postgres starting at free (0.25 vCPU, 1GB RAM) up to 3XL at $1.28/hour with 8 vCPU and 32GB RAM. Storage costs $0.50/month per GB.

Source
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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