Quick answer
Prefect Cloud - Prefect Cloud wins for most workflow builders because its free tier is more usable day to day for orchestration, while Koyeb wins only if you need app hosting or databases, not job control.
How the free tiers compare
These free tiers solve different problems. Koyeb is a cloud runtime: you get serverless compute, Postgres, bandwidth, regions, deployments, and scaling primitives. Its free tier is broader for hosting actual services, but it is capped by compute credit and infrastructure limits, so it feels like a starter hosting account rather than an unlimited playground. Prefect Cloud is an orchestration layer: the free tier is narrower in raw infrastructure, but it gives a small team enough seats, deployments, automations, and monthly serverless credits to run real Python workflow management. The tradeoff is that Prefect’s paid pricing is not clearly published here, so growth planning is less transparent. If you are deploying apps and APIs, Koyeb fits better. If you are scheduling, monitoring, and coordinating jobs, Prefect Cloud is the more natural free tier.
Koyeb vs Prefect Cloud free tier, side by side
| KoyebFTV 40 | Prefect CloudFTV 52 | |
|---|---|---|
| UsersKoyeb’s free tier is broader for small teams; Prefect caps the Hobby tier more tightly. | Up to 10 users | Up to 2 users |
| Services / deploymentsThese are not identical units, but they show Koyeb’s free tier is built for more hosted workloads, while Prefect keeps the free tier small. | Up to 100 services | Up to 5 deployments |
| Compute / execution allowanceKoyeb’s allowance is tied to compute credit; Prefect’s is tied to serverless credits. | $10 included compute | 500 serverless credits per month |
| Storage / databasePrefect’s input does not list database or storage quotas. | 1 GB Postgres storage and 0.25 vCPU / 1 GB RAM | Not provided |
| Custom domainsKoyeb includes domain support in the free tier; Prefect’s input does not mention this. | 10 custom domains included | Not provided |
| RetentionBoth keep short retention windows, but for different artifacts. | 7 days of metrics and logs retention | 7 days of run retention |
| API rate limitThis is a published free-tier limit for Prefect Cloud. | Not provided | 625 requests per minute |
| SupportBoth start with community-level support. | Community platform access | Community support channel included |
After you outgrow the free tier
Koyeb’s paid path is published and usage-linked: Pro starts at $29/mo plus compute, Scale at $299/mo plus compute, and Enterprise is custom. That means the bill can rise with both plan level and actual usage. Prefect Cloud’s paid plans are not clearly priced in the provided input, so the first meaningful paid tier is effectively contact sales, with pricing varying by package and likely by usage or seats, but no exact rates are given here. For typical small-team usage, Koyeb is more transparent; Prefect is harder to estimate from the published information alone.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Koyeb | Prefect Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| small team, light usageKoyeb’s Pro plan is published; Prefect’s paid pricing is not clearly published in the input. | $29/mo + compute, est. | Contact sales / varies by usage |
| moderate hosted app use that stays near included creditKoyeb still charges for compute beyond the included credit; Prefect has no public rate here to compare against. | $29/mo + compute, est. | Contact sales / varies by usage |
| larger team or production-scale needsKoyeb’s Scale plan is the next published step; Prefect’s Enterprise and managed plans are sales-led. | $299/mo + compute, est. | Contact sales / varies by usage |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Koyeb when…
- You need to deploy APIs, web services, or inference endpoints on the same platform.
- You want bundled Postgres in the free tier, even if the capacity is small.
- You care about infrastructure features like custom domains, private networking, and global load balancing.
- You want a platform for containers, Docker builds, and automatic CI/CD rather than workflow orchestration.
- You expect to manage more than simple job runs and need a hosting layer with scaling and observability.
Pick Prefect Cloud when…
- You are building Python workflows that need scheduling, retries, and monitoring.
- You need a small team to share one workspace with up to 2 users and a few deployments.
- You want monthly serverless credits for workflow execution without standing up your own orchestration stack.
- You care more about automations and run retention than about hosting containers or databases.
- You are evaluating a managed control plane for background jobs, not an app hosting platform.
Bottom line
For the most common builder deciding on a free tier, Prefect Cloud is the better fit if the job is workflow orchestration and you want to start running real automations with a small team. Koyeb is the better free tier if you need to host code, APIs, or a database in one place. The deciding factor is not quota size alone. It is whether you need a control plane for jobs or a runtime for apps.
Read the full listings: Koyeb and Prefect Cloud. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.