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Cloud · head to head

Longhorn vs Northflank

Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Northflank logo

Northflank

Cloud

The runtime platform for AI-native companies

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Northflank pricing complexity with multiple rate dimensions
  • They diverge on capability: Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Northflank covers Application deployments.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Longhorn and Northflank actually diverge.

Attributes where Longhorn and Northflank differ
AttributeLonghornNorthflank
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeUnknown
PlatformsLinux, KubernetesAWS, GCP, Azure, On-premises

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Longhorn

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

Only in Northflank

  • Application deployments
  • GPU support
  • Preview environments
  • Database management
  • Multi-cloud support
  • GitOps integration

What people use each for

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

Longhorn

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

Northflank

  • Deploying AI inference models with GPU accelerationnot Longhorn
  • Running training workloads on distributed GPUsnot Longhorn
  • Building microservices with multi-cloud reliabilitynot Longhorn

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Northflank

  • Pricing complexity with multiple rate dimensions
  • GPU costs can be expensive for large-scale deployments
  • Learning curve for Kubernetes concepts

Pricing, plan by plan

Longhorn

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

Northflank

Free
  • Sandbox (Free)Free
    • Always-on compute with no sleeping
    • 2 free services
    • 1 free database
  • Pay-as-you-go$undefined/usage
    • CPU: $0.01667 per vCPU per hour
    • Memory: $0.00833 per GB per hour
    • Network egress: $0.06 per GB
  • Enterprise$undefined/custom
    • Custom pricing with volume discounts
    • Invoice-based billing
    • Annual commitments

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Northflank if

  • You need application deployments.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on AWS, GCP, Azure, On-premises.
  • You also want gpu support.
Northflank review

Questions people ask

Is Longhorn or Northflank better?
Neither clearly leads. Longhorn starts at Free and Northflank at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Longhorn or Northflank?
Longhorn starts at Free and Northflank at Free.
Does Longhorn or Northflank run on more platforms?
Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes. Northflank runs on AWS, GCP, Azure, On-premises.
Can I use Longhorn for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Longhorn best used for?
Longhorn is most often used for an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes, edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster, a k3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloads, a team that wants snapshots and s3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licences. Of those, an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes and edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster are not what Northflank is typically brought in for.
What can Longhorn do that Northflank cannot?
Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion. Northflank covers Application deployments, GPU support, Preview environments, Database management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Northflank: What is included in the free Sandbox tier?

The Sandbox includes always-on compute, 2 free services, 1 free database, 2 free cron jobs, and is perfect for testing applications.

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.

Northflank: How much does CPU cost on Northflank?

CPU costs $0.01667 per vCPU per hour on pay-as-you-go pricing.

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.

Northflank: What GPUs are available?

GPU options include NVIDIA L4 at $0.80/hr through H100 at $2.74/hr.

Source
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