Modal vs MWS Cloud: Complete Comparison (2026)

Why choose Modal

• Has a free plan (MWS Cloud does not)
• Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 4/10)
• Higher Scalability score (9/10 vs 6/10)
• Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 5/10)

Why choose MWS Cloud

Our data shows no clear advantage over Modal.

Modal

Pros

• GPUs from the T4 up to the B300 are available without quota requests or reservations, and workloads can burst to thousands of containers.
• Per-second billing and scale-to-zero mean idle bursty inference workloads cost nothing.
• Python developers define infrastructure in code and deploy with a single CLI command, with no Kubernetes or Dockerfiles needed.
• The free Starter plan includes $30 a month of compute, and startup and academic credit programs are available.
• Sandboxes support large numbers of concurrent isolated environments for AI agents and untrusted code.

Cons

• Always-on or steady workloads can cost more than reserved GPU rentals from providers such as RunPod or Lambda.
• Containers stay billable for 60 seconds after the last request by default, and keep-warm settings are a common source of bill surprises.
• Region pinning raises prices by 1.15 to 1.75 times, and non-preemptible execution by 3 times.
• SSO, audit logs, and HIPAA support are limited to the custom-priced Enterprise plan.
• Credits from AWS, GCP, or Azure cannot be applied to Modal usage.

MWS Cloud

Pros

• It holds Russian compliance certifications, including 152-FZ at UZ-1, GOST R 57580, and PCI DSS 4.0.1.
• It runs on MTS's own data centers and network, with Tier III facilities and a stated 99.95% availability.
• The catalog is broad: managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, ClickHouse, Kafka, Valkey and Kubernetes, plus Object Storage and a CDN.
• Infrastructure can be automated through the API, CLI and Terraform as well as the web console.
• Security services include Anti-DDoS, WAF, KMS, Secret Manager and SOC.

Cons

• A 2025 Habr review found that most platform services were in preview, and Compute had no SLA.
• At review time, onboarding meant a form and a manual approval that could take up to 10 days, and the CDN was available only on request.
• The same review found no NAT gateway, only one storage class, and no automatic issuance of SSL certificates.
• Prices are not shown on the website, and one user comment called VM prices much higher than those of budget VPS hosts.
• Billing at review time had no budget alerts or forecasting.