I spent two weeks testing every BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) platform I could find. BYOC means a platform deploys your apps into your cloud account, your AWS, your GCP, while managing the operational complexity for you. You own the infrastructure. They own the developer experience.
Here's what I found.
Why BYOC instead of Railway/Render/Heroku?
Three reasons:
Cost. Shared PaaS platforms add margin on compute. At $500+/month, you're paying significantly more than cloud-direct pricing. BYOC lets you use reserved instances and startup credits.
Compliance. SOC 2 and GDPR audits are way easier when you point auditors at your own CloudTrail logs instead of depending on a vendor's SOC 2 report.
No vendor lock-in on infrastructure. If you leave a shared PaaS, your infrastructure doesn't come with you. With BYOC, your cloud resources stay in your account.
The platforms
1. AZIN: GCP BYOC, no Kubernetes overhead
Clouds: GCP (AWS and Azure on roadmap)
BYOC model: GKE Autopilot, first cluster free, pay per pod
Min cost: Platform fee + GCP costs (no cluster overhead)
AZIN gives you a Railway-like push-to-deploy experience, but your containers run in your GCP account on GKE Autopilot. The key differentiator: GKE Autopilot's first cluster is free and you pay only for pod resources. No EKS control plane fee. No idle nodes.
You push code, AZIN builds it (using Railpack, an open-source builder), deploys it, handles TLS and networking. Everything is visible in your Google Cloud Console.
Best for: Teams on GCP who want the simplest BYOC experience with the lowest cost floor.
Limitation: GCP only for now. If you need AWS or Azure today, look at Porter or Flightcontrol.
Full comparison of all BYOC platforms: azin.run/blog/best-byoc-cloud-platforms
2. Porter: Managed Kubernetes on all three clouds
Clouds: AWS (EKS), GCP (GKE), Azure (AKS)
BYOC model: Managed Kubernetes clusters in your account
Min cost: ~$225/month on AWS (EKS control plane + nodes)
Porter provisions and manages a full Kubernetes cluster in your cloud account. You deploy through a Heroku-like UI. Under the hood: real K8s with all the power and all the operational overhead managed for you.
The catch: Kubernetes clusters have a base cost. On AWS, the EKS control plane is ~$75/month, plus node instances. The minimum practical bill before deploying anything is roughly $225/month.
Best for: Teams that want multi-cloud BYOC and are comfortable with the K8s base cost.
Limitation: High cost floor on AWS. GitHub-only for source integration.
3. Flightcontrol: AWS-only, ECS-based
Clouds: AWS only
BYOC model: ECS + CloudFormation in your account
Min cost: $0 (free tier: 1 service, unlimited deploys)
Flightcontrol skips Kubernetes entirely. It deploys to your AWS account using ECS (Elastic Container Service) and Fargate. Infrastructure is provisioned via CloudFormation, standard AWS primitives. If you stop using Flightcontrol, your AWS resources remain as-is.
All 28 AWS regions are supported. IAM AssumeRole for access, clean and auditable.
Best for: AWS-native teams who don't want Kubernetes.
Limitation: AWS only. Preview environments require the $397/month Business plan. Small team (~6 people).
4. Northflank: BYOC across six clouds
Clouds: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, Civo, CoreWeave
BYOC model: Managed Kubernetes + BYOK (bring your own K8s cluster)
Min cost: $0 (free Developer Sandbox: 1 BYOC cluster)
Northflank has the broadest cloud coverage of any BYOC platform. They also support bringing existing Kubernetes clusters (BYOK), which is unique. BYOC is available on all plans, including the free tier.
The platform itself is full-featured: CI/CD, managed databases, per-second billing, preview environments.
Best for: Teams that need BYOC across multiple cloud providers or have existing K8s clusters.
Limitation: Steeper learning curve. The free tier limits you to 1 BYOC cluster.
5. Qovery: Terraform-based BYOC
Clouds: AWS, GCP, Azure
BYOC model: Terraform + Kubernetes in your account
Min cost: $0 (free tier: 1 cluster, 1 project)
Qovery uses Terraform to provision Kubernetes clusters in your cloud account. It targets platform engineering teams that want a self-service developer portal on existing infrastructure. Per-seat pricing on paid plans ($29/user/month).
Best for: Platform engineering teams managing multiple environments.
Limitation: Terraform dependency adds complexity. Per-seat pricing scales poorly for larger teams.
6. Defang: Docker Compose to your cloud
Clouds: AWS, DigitalOcean (GCP coming)
BYOC model: Docker Compose → ECS
Min cost: Free (beta)
Defang takes a standard docker-compose.yml and deploys it to your cloud account. If your local dev uses Docker Compose, this is the fastest path to production in your own cloud. Still in beta.
Best for: Docker Compose workflows that need to move to production.
Limitation: Beta. No managed databases. Limited to Compose workflows.
Quick comparison
| Platform | Clouds | Min cost | Managed DBs | No K8s needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AZIN | GCP | Platform fee + GCP | Yes | Yes |
| Porter | AWS/GCP/Azure | ~$225/mo (AWS) | Yes | Yes |
| Flightcontrol | AWS | $0 (free tier) | Yes (RDS) | Yes |
| Northflank | 6 clouds | $0 (free tier) | Yes | Yes |
| Qovery | AWS/GCP/Azure | $0 (free tier) | Yes | No (Terraform) |
| Defang | AWS/DO | Free (beta) | No | Yes |
What about Railway, Render, and Heroku?
Railway has BYOC, but it's Enterprise-only with pricing not publicly listed.
Render does not offer BYOC at any tier.
Heroku entered sustain mode in February 2026. No new features. If you're still on Heroku, the migration question is when, not if, and BYOC is worth considering over jumping to another shared PaaS.
When shared PaaS is still fine
If you're building a side project, prototyping, or your monthly compute is under $100, shared PaaS (Railway, Render) is simpler and sufficient. BYOC makes sense when compliance, cost at scale, or infrastructure ownership starts mattering.
The crossover point is roughly $300-500/month in compute spend. Above that, BYOC saves money. Below that, it's an operational overhead you don't need yet.
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