Beam vs Cloudflare (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Cloudflare is our pick, scoring 7.6/10 against 6.4/10 for Beam on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Integration score (8/10 vs 5/10). For 10 users, Cloudflare is free, against $89/mo for Beam; only Cloudflare has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Beam
6.4/10
Beam is a serverless cloud for AI teams and coding agents, offering sandboxes, persistent VMs, serverless GPU endpoints, task queues and on-demand GPU machines with per-second billing.
Cloudflare
7.6/10
Cloudflare is a global edge network. It offers CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and a WAF, plus serverless compute and storage (Workers, R2, D1) for developers and businesses.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.4/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Integration | 5/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 4/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 4/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $20/mo Developer | $5/mo Workers Paid |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $89/mo Team | Free Free |
| Features | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Beam vs Cloudflare cost by team size
Cloudflare costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Beam | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $20/moDeveloper | FreeFree |
| 5 users | $89/moTeam | FreeFree |
| 10 users | $89/moTeam | FreeFree |
| 25 users | $89/moTeam | FreeFree |
| 50 users | $89/moTeam | FreeFree |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Beam and Cloudflare suit
Cloudflare fits enterprise better than Beam.
| Audience | Beam | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 5/10Beam offers SOC 2 Type II, a Growth tier, clusters and bring-your-own-cloud, but the vendor is very small and publishes few details on regions. | 8/10Contract plans add 10x to 25x SLA credits, Magic Transit, API Shield and 24x7 phone support. |
| SaaS Companies | 7/10Autoscaling GPU endpoints and sandboxes for agent code let SaaS products ship AI features without running GPU servers. | 8/10Edge compute and egress-free storage suit multi-tenant applications. |
| Startups | 8/10The $20 Developer plan includes matching credit, and scale-to-zero billing keeps costs low for small AI teams. | 9/10The free plan includes CDN, DDoS protection and SSL, and paid compute starts at $5 a month. |
| Developers | 9/10Everything runs from a Python or TypeScript SDK and a CLI, with decorators that turn functions into endpoints and task queues. | 9/10Workers, R2 and D1 have generous free tiers and low metered prices. |
| E-commerce | Not rated | 8/10The Business plan includes PCI DSS compliance and an uptime SLA. |
| Small Business | Not rated | 7/10Protection is affordable, but support on Free and Pro is limited. |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Beam
- Higher Support score (5/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Cloudflare
- Has a free plan (Beam does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $89/mo
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (8/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
Beam
Pros
- Billing is per second, or per millisecond for sandboxes, with no egress fees and no compute charge while VMs are stopped. Storage was not yet billed at the time of research.
- Beta9, the core runtime, is open source under AGPL-3.0, so teams can self-host it or add their own hardware using the same CLI across cloud, on-prem and hybrid setups.
- Agent-focused sandboxes start in about half a second and can be paused, snapshotted, forked and given a GPU. Paused VMs resume with RAM and processes intact.
- GetDeploying's comparison found Beam's H100, H200, B200, L40S, RTX PRO 6000 and A6000 machine prices cheaper than Runpod's.
- Beam publishes a SOC 2 Type II report, and GetDeploying lists GDPR coverage through a DPA and HIPAA availability on the enterprise tier.
Cons
- Beam lists 10 GPU models, compared with 34 on Runpod in GetDeploying's comparison, and Runpod is cheaper on A100 and RTX 4090.
- In GetDeploying's comparison, a medium always-on VM (4 vCPU, 8 GB) cost about $289 a month on Beam versus about $86 on Runpod.
- Beam does not publish a list of data center regions, so buyers with residency needs must ask sales.
- The entry Developer plan is capped at 1 seat and 5 concurrent GPUs, and live chat support starts only on the $89 Team plan.
- Independent user reviews are scarce, and the vendor is very small (YC lists a team of 5), which may concern buyers who need long-term support guarantees.
Cloudflare
Pros
- The free plan includes unmetered DDoS protection, a CDN, a WAF and universal SSL.
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees.
- Workers has very low entry pricing: a $5 monthly minimum and $0.30 per additional million requests.
- The Business plan adds a 100 percent uptime SLA and PCI DSS compliance for $200 a month billed annually.
Cons
- Reviewers report slow support on Free and Pro, which have no chat or phone support.
- Global outages in November and December 2025 disrupted many sites at the same time.
- Reviewers report billing problems, such as charges after cancelling add-ons.
- It offers no traditional shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers, so you still need an origin host for conventional workloads.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudflare scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.6/10 against 6.4/10 for Beam. The largest gap is in Analytics: 4/10 for Beam and 7/10 for Cloudflare.
Cloudflare costs less for 10 users: free on its Free plan, against about $89/mo on its Team plan for Beam, billed monthly.
Cloudflare has a free plan; Beam does not list one.
Cloudflare is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 8/10 for them, against 5/10 for Beam.
