Northflank vs Verda

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.

Verda

The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, a dated changelog, published rate limits with Retry-After, and an audit log endpoint. The CLI's MCP server refuses billed or destructive calls without confirm: true. Access needs a browser signup and a prepaid balance, credentials carry one scope, and instance creation has no idempotency key.

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

Verda

1. Exchange the client ID and secret at POST /v1/oauth2/token, then send the access token as a Bearer header. It expires after 3,600 seconds, so refresh it.
2. Send location_code on every create call. Requests without it have returned 400 since March 2026.
3. Call GET /v1/instance-availability before launching. POST /v1/instances returns 503 service_unavailable when the location has no capacity.
4. List instances before retrying a failed launch, because create has no idempotency key.
5. Use the delete action to stop charges. shutdown keeps billing, and deleted volumes stay recoverable for 96 hours unless delete_permanently is set.