Dust vs Northflank: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Dust and Northflank to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Dust
6.9/10
Dust is a Paris-founded platform where companies build custom AI agents that work on their internal data across tools like Slack, Notion and GitHub.
Northflank
7.3/10
Northflank is a Kubernetes-based developer platform for deploying services, jobs, databases and GPU workloads on its managed cloud or on customers' own cloud accounts.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.9/10 | 7.3/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Output Quality | 7/10 | Not listed |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | €30/user/mo Business - Pro seat | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | €300/mo Business - Pro seat | Free Sandbox |
| Features | ||
| AI Agents | Not listed | |
| API Access | Not listed | |
| Chatbots | Not listed | |
| Enterprise Controls | Not listed | |
| Knowledge Base Search | Not listed | |
| Private Deployment | Not listed | |
| Text Generation | Not listed | |
| Workflow Automation | Not listed | |
| More features | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
Dust vs Northflank cost by team size
| Team size | Dust | Northflank |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | €30/moBusiness - Pro seat | FreeSandbox |
| 5 users | €150/moBusiness - Pro seat | FreeSandbox |
| 10 users | €300/moBusiness - Pro seat | FreeSandbox |
| 25 users | €750/moBusiness - Pro seat | FreeSandbox |
| 50 users | €1,500/moBusiness - Pro seat | FreeSandbox |
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.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Dust
- Higher Security score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Northflank
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
Dust
Pros
- Model-agnostic: more than 20 models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and DeepSeek, with none locked behind a higher plan.
- Agents inherit permissions from connected sources, which reduces the risk of leaking data.
- SOC 2 Type II and a choice of US or EU data residency, with single-tenant deployment on Enterprise.
- G2 reviewers rate it highly, with 22 reviews averaging 4.9 out of 5, and say non-technical staff can build agents.
- Monthly seats can be cancelled anytime, and seat types can be changed per user.
Cons
- The Business plan is capped at 3 connectors, 5 MCP servers and 5 Spaces.
- Agent answers are only as good as the structure and freshness of the connected data.
- Its native integration catalogue is smaller than Microsoft Copilot's or Glean's, and some G2 reviewers ask for more integrations.
- Credits that run out need admin-approved overage, and unused credits do not roll over.
- Business customers get email support only.
Northflank
Pros
- Per-second usage billing with no seat or workspace fees. Northflank's own comparison prices a 2 vCPU, 4 GB service at $48 a month, against $85 at Render.
- The same platform can run workloads in your own AWS, GCP, Azure or Civo account, or on imported Kubernetes clusters, so moving off the managed cloud does not mean switching tools.
- G2 reviewers praise fast support from engineers who know the product.
- Builds from GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket are built in, and preview environments are created for each pull request.
- GPU options run from L4 to B200, so AI workloads can sit next to ordinary services.
Cons
- SLAs, SSO, SCIM, audit logs and the WAF are only available on Enterprise.
- G2 reviewers mention a limited choice of regions and slow builds because local Docker caching is missing.
- Some Trustpilot reviewers report slow support, and the review base is small overall.
- The vendor's pricing and features pages carry a notice about a security incident and ask users to rotate their credentials.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Northflank scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 7.3/10 against 6.9/10 for Dust. The largest gap is in Cost: 6/10 for Dust and 7/10 for Northflank.
Yes, both Dust and Northflank have a free plan.
Northflank is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 5/10 for Dust.
