# Modal vs Northflank

> Modal has a score of 63.8 (B) against Northflank's 61.8 (C). Both do compute gpu. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 20 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-northflank
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-northflank.md (~1,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-northflank.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-northflank.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Modal has a score of 63.8 (B) against Northflank's 61.8 (C). Both do compute gpu. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 20 points.

- Modal: grade B, 63.8/100, rank #195 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/modal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/modal.json
- Northflank: grade C, 61.8/100, rank #224 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/northflank.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/northflank.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Modal for reliability (+5), agent ergonomics (+9), maintenance & community (+20), transparency & trust (+9).

Pick Northflank for schema & documentation (+11), security & auth (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Modal | Northflank | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 65 | Modal +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 81 | Northflank +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 48 | Modal +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 75 | Northflank +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 65 | Modal +20 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 60 | Modal +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.8 · B** | **61.8 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Modal | Northflank |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Modal | Northflank |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.northflank.com/v1` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | Token |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | none |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-24 |
| Popularity | 514 stars, 941k npm/wk, 10.1M PyPI/wk | 19k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Modal.** Scale to zero by default, per-second billing and about one-second container boots. No REST API or OpenAPI spec for deploying or invoking Functions.

**Northflank.** OpenAPI 3.0 with over 100 paths, enums and `per_page`, `page` and `cursor` on every list. No scale to zero for services; minimum instances must be at least 1.

## Before you call either

### Modal

1. Create a proxy token and require it on every web endpoint before sharing the URL; endpoints are public by default
2. Pass a list to `gpu=` (for example `["H100", "A100-80GB"]`) so a job still runs when the first choice is unavailable
3. Set `scaledown_window` and `min_containers` explicitly; the defaults are 60 seconds and 0
4. Use `.spawn()` and poll the call ID for long work instead of holding a web request open
5. Keep web endpoint traffic under 200 requests a second or ask Modal to raise the limit

### Northflank

1. Issue the agent a team token under an API role limited to one project, not a personal token
2. Read `x-ratelimit-remaining` and wait `x-ratelimit-reset` seconds on a 429; the default is 1,000 calls an hour
3. Page lists with `per_page` up to 100 and the returned `cursor` instead of numbered pages
4. Use a job, not a service, for anything that finishes; services bill until paused or deleted
5. Fetch any docs page with .md appended to get Markdown

## Other comparisons with Modal or Northflank

- [Baseten vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-modal.md)
- [Baseten vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-northflank.md)
- [Beam vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-modal.md)
- [Beam vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-northflank.md)
- [Koyeb vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-modal.md)
- [Koyeb vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koyeb-vs-northflank.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-modal.md)
- [Lambda Cloud vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lambda-vs-northflank.md)
- [Modal vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Modal vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-vs-runpod.md)
- [Northflank vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/northflank-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Northflank vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/northflank-vs-runpod.md)