Best BYOC Cloud Platforms in 2026: Deploy to Your Own Cloud Account

Most PaaS platforms deploy to their infrastructure. You push code, they run it on shared servers you don't control. BYOC — Bring Your Own Cloud — flips the model. The PaaS handles the developer experience. Your cloud account handles the compute. You keep full ownership of your infrastructure, your data, and your bill.

This isn't a niche concept anymore. As compliance requirements tighten, AI workloads demand data sovereignty, and teams hit the cost ceiling of shared platforms, BYOC is becoming the default deployment model for production workloads.

But the category is fragmented. Some platforms do true BYOC. Others deploy to bare servers via SSH. A few claim BYOC but gate it behind enterprise contracts. This guide covers every option worth considering in 2026, with honest trade-offs for each.

#What is BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud)?

BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) is a deployment model where a PaaS platform deploys and manages your applications inside your own cloud account — your AWS, your GCP, your Azure. Not their infrastructure. Yours. You own the data, the infrastructure, and the billing relationship.

Here's the flow:

• You connect your cloud account (AWS, GCP, or Azure) to the PaaS
• You push code via git or CLI
• The PaaS builds, configures, and deploys containers into your cloud account
• You pay the cloud provider directly for compute — no markup
• The PaaS charges a platform fee for the developer experience

The platform handles builds, deployments, networking, TLS, preview environments, and scaling. Your cloud account handles compute, storage, and databases. The line between "platform" and "infrastructure" is clean.

#How BYOC differs from shared PaaS

On a shared PaaS like Heroku, Railway, or Render, your containers run on the platform's servers alongside other customers' workloads. You don't see the underlying infrastructure. You don't control the region, the instance type, or the networking.

With BYOC:

• You own the infrastructure. Containers run in your cloud account. If you leave the PaaS, your infra stays.
• You pay cloud-direct pricing. No markup on compute. Use reserved instances, savings plans, and committed-use discounts.
• You control data residency. Pick any region your cloud provider supports. Keep data within legislative borders.
• You get a real audit trail. Every resource is visible in your cloud console. CloudTrail, VPC flow logs, IAM policies — all yours.
• You avoid vendor lock-in. Your infrastructure is standard cloud resources, not proprietary abstractions.

The trade-off: you manage a cloud account. You pay the cloud bill. For a weekend project, shared PaaS is simpler and often cheaper. For production workloads, BYOC almost always wins on cost, compliance, and control.

#Why BYOC matters now

Three trends are pushing teams toward BYOC in 2026.

Compliance is no longer optional

SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and industry-specific regulations increasingly require demonstrable control over where data lives and how infrastructure is configured. Shared PaaS platforms make compliance audits harder because you don't control the underlying infrastructure. BYOC gives auditors what they need: resources in your account, with your IAM policies, in your chosen region.

AI workloads demand data sovereignty

Training data, model weights, inference logs — AI workloads handle sensitive data at every step. Running these on shared infrastructure means trusting someone else's isolation guarantees. BYOC keeps AI data in your account, under your encryption keys, within your network boundaries.

Cost ceilings hit at scale

Shared PaaS platforms charge per-resource-minute with built-in margin. At small scale, this is fine. At production scale, shared PaaS platforms include margin on compute. At production scale, cloud-direct pricing through BYOC is typically lower — the difference depends on workload size, provider, and reserved instance discounts. BYOC lets you use reserved instances, committed-use discounts, and spot instances. The savings compound fast.

#Who needs BYOC

Not everyone does. Here's the breakdown.

BYOC is right for you if:

• You have compliance requirements (SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI)
• You run AI workloads with sensitive data
• Your monthly compute spend exceeds ~$500
• You need multi-region or specific-region deployments
• You want to use existing cloud credits or enterprise agreements
• You need infrastructure visibility for security audits

Shared PaaS is fine if:

• You're prototyping or building a side project
• Compliance isn't a concern yet
• Monthly spend is under $100
• You want zero infrastructure management
• Speed of deployment matters more than infrastructure control

#The best BYOC cloud platforms in 2026

As of February 2026, these are the platforms that offer true BYOC deployment — deploying to your own cloud provider account, not shared infrastructure.

#AZIN

GCP BYOC today. Railway-level DX. No Kubernetes overhead.

As of February 2026, AZIN is the only BYOC platform we are aware of where the first Kubernetes cluster is free — it deploys to your GCP account via GKE Autopilot, where you pay only for the pods you run, with $0 cluster overhead (as of February 2026). Push code, get a deployment. The difference from shared PaaS: containers run in your cloud account, not on shared infrastructure. AWS and Azure BYOC are on the roadmap.

How BYOC works on AZIN

Connect your GCP account, push code, and AZIN handles the rest — builds, networking, TLS, scaling, and preview environments. Infrastructure provisions directly in your account via GKE Autopilot. You see every resource in your GCP console.

No Kubernetes clusters to manage. No Helm charts. No YAML. AZIN abstracts the orchestration layer entirely while keeping your infrastructure transparent. GKE Autopilot means the first cluster is free and you pay only for the pods you run — no idle node costs.

Pricing

Platform fee plus your GCP costs. No markup on compute. Scale-to-zero means you pay nothing when services aren't running. Because GKE Autopilot has no cluster overhead (unlike EKS at ~$75/month), the floor is lower than Kubernetes-based BYOC platforms.

Supported clouds

GCP today, with AWS and Azure on our roadmap.

Best for

Teams that want Vercel-level developer experience with full infrastructure ownership on GCP. AI workloads that need data sovereignty. Companies scaling past the cost ceiling of shared PaaS who run on Google Cloud.

Limitations

GCP only for now — AWS and Azure BYOC are in progress. Requires a GCP account. Template library is still growing compared to platforms with 1,800+ templates like Railway. AZIN supports any app with a Dockerfile — see how to deploy Docker containers on AZIN or host PostgreSQL in your own cloud.

#Porter

BYOC via managed Kubernetes. ~$225/mo minimum on AWS.

Porter deploys to your AWS, GCP, or Azure account by provisioning and managing Kubernetes clusters (EKS, GKE, AKS) in your cloud (as of February 2026). You get a Heroku-like interface on top of production-grade K8s infrastructure. The trade-off is cost: the minimum viable AWS setup runs approximately $225/mo in cluster infrastructure before you deploy any workloads.

How BYOC works on Porter

Porter provisions an EKS, GKE, or AKS cluster in your cloud account. You deploy through a dashboard or CLI, and Porter manages the cluster lifecycle — upgrades, scaling, networking. Workloads run on your cloud resources.

The catch: Kubernetes clusters have a base cost. An EKS cluster on AWS runs ~$75/month for the control plane alone, plus node costs. The minimum practical AWS bill is ~$225/month before you deploy anything.

Pricing (as of February 2026)

Porter Cloud (managed): $20/vCPU/month + $10/GB RAM. BYOC Standard: $13/vCPU/month + $6/GB RAM, plus your cloud costs. Startup program offers 25 vCPU + 50 GB RAM free for 6 months (underlying AWS costs still apply).

Supported clouds

AWS (EKS), GCP (GKE), Azure (AKS).

Best for

Startups that want managed Kubernetes without hiring a DevOps team. Teams already committed to the K8s ecosystem. Companies that qualify for the startup program.

Limitations

Kubernetes base cost creates a high floor (~$225/month on AWS). GitHub-only for source integration — no GitLab or Bitbucket. Porter's V1 to V2 migration required changes for early adopters (per community reports). No scale-to-zero on the base cluster.

Head to Head

AZIN vs Porter — GKE Autopilot vs Managed EKS

Two BYOC approaches compared: zero cluster overhead vs traditional Kubernetes. Pricing, scaling, and cost floor.

#Flightcontrol

BYOC to AWS only. Uses ECS, not Kubernetes.

Flightcontrol deploys to your AWS account using ECS (Elastic Container Service) and Fargate. No Kubernetes. All 28 AWS regions supported. The deployment model uses IAM AssumeRole and CloudFormation — standard AWS primitives.

How BYOC works on Flightcontrol

You grant Flightcontrol access to your AWS account via IAM AssumeRole. Flightcontrol uses CloudFormation to provision ECS services, RDS databases, and supporting infrastructure. Everything lives in your AWS account as standard resources.

This is a clean approach. If you stop using Flightcontrol, your AWS resources remain. No proprietary abstractions to untangle.

Pricing (as of February 2026)

Free tier: unlimited projects/environments/deployments, 1 user. Starter: $97/month (5 services). Business: $397/month (10 services, preview environments, RBAC, multi-region). Plus your AWS costs billed separately.

Supported clouds

AWS only. No GCP. No Azure.

Best for

AWS-native teams that want a PaaS layer without leaving AWS. Teams that prefer ECS over Kubernetes. Companies that need all 28 AWS regions.

Limitations

AWS only — if you need GCP or Azure, look elsewhere. Small team (~6 people). No CLI. Preview environments only on the Business plan at $397/month. No scale-to-zero on ECS services by default. See the AZIN vs Flightcontrol comparison for a side-by-side look at these two BYOC approaches.

#Northflank

Full-featured PaaS with BYOC on all plans.

Northflank is a comprehensive PaaS that supports both managed hosting and BYOC. The platform offers full CI/CD, per-second billing, managed databases, and support for a wide range of cloud providers. BYOC is available on all plans — the free Developer Sandbox includes 1 BYOC cluster.

How BYOC works on Northflank

Northflank separates the control plane from the runtime. The control plane runs in Northflank's infrastructure. The runtime — all your workloads, databases, and data — runs in your cloud account. Northflank provisions and manages Kubernetes clusters in your account.

The architecture supports AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, Civo, and CoreWeave. You can also bring existing Kubernetes clusters (BYOK).

Pricing

Self-service tiers use Northflank's infrastructure with per-second billing. Free Developer Sandbox includes 2 services, 2 cron jobs, 1 database, and 1 BYOC cluster. BYOC is available on all plans — higher tiers add more BYOC clusters and features.

Supported clouds (BYOC)

AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, Civo, CoreWeave, on-premises, bare metal.

Best for

Teams that need BYOC across many cloud providers. Organizations that want the widest cloud provider coverage. Enterprise teams with existing Kubernetes infrastructure (BYOK).

Limitations

BYOC is available on all plans including the free tier, but the free Developer Sandbox limits you to 1 BYOC cluster. The platform is powerful but has a steeper learning curve than simpler PaaS alternatives. Northflank's blog positions itself as "the only BYOC PaaS" which isn't accurate — there are several options in this guide.

#Coolify

Open-source, self-hosted PaaS. Deploy to any server via SSH.

Coolify is an open-source alternative to Vercel, Heroku, and Netlify. You install it on your own server (VPS, bare metal, cloud instance) and deploy apps through a web dashboard. 50,000+ GitHub stars. Backed by a passionate community.

How deployment works

Coolify connects to servers via SSH and deploys Docker containers. You can deploy to a single server, multiple servers, or Docker Swarm clusters. Supports 280+ one-click services including databases, monitoring tools, and LLM frameworks.

Pricing

Free. Forever. Self-hosted with no license fees. A cloud-hosted version exists starting at $5/month if you don't want to manage Coolify itself.

Supported clouds

Any server with SSH access. AWS EC2, GCP Compute Engine, Azure VMs, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, bare metal — anything.

Best for

Developers who want full control and don't mind managing servers. Cost-sensitive teams that want to run on cheap VPS providers like Hetzner. Hobbyists and indie developers.

Why it's not true BYOC

Coolify deploys to servers, not cloud accounts. It doesn't provision managed cloud services (RDS, Cloud SQL, managed Redis). You manage the server, the OS, updates, and security. It's closer to "self-hosted PaaS" than "BYOC PaaS."

Limitations

Led primarily by Andras Bacsai, with a growing contributor community. No managed databases — you run databases in containers or set them up yourself. No managed networking or load balancing. Server maintenance is on you. Kubernetes support is still in development.

#Kamal

Docker deployment to any server. By 37signals.

Kamal is a deployment tool from 37signals (the company behind Basecamp and HEY). It deploys Docker containers to any server via SSH with zero-downtime deploys, rolling restarts, and automatic TLS via its built-in kamal-proxy.

How deployment works

Define your app configuration in a deploy.yml file. Run kamal deploy. Kamal builds your Docker image, pushes it to a registry, and deploys it to your servers via SSH. The built-in proxy handles routing, zero-downtime deploys, and TLS certificates.

Kamal 2 introduced multi-application support on a single server, maintenance mode, and a new proxy architecture. 37signals runs HEY on Kamal.

Pricing

Free. Open source. MIT license.

Supported clouds

Any server with SSH access and Docker.

Best for

Rails teams. Teams that want deployment simplicity without a PaaS. Developers comfortable with the command line and server management. Anyone inspired by 37signals' approach to infrastructure.

Why it's not BYOC

Kamal is a deployment tool, not a platform. No dashboard. No managed databases. No preview environments. No auto-scaling. No built-in CI/CD. You configure everything yourself. It's the opposite end of the spectrum from a PaaS — maximum control, minimum abstraction.

Limitations

Ruby-based tooling. No web UI. No managed services. No preview environments. Best suited for teams with existing server management experience. Not a fit if you want PaaS-level developer experience.

#SST (Serverless Stack)

Deploy serverless apps to your AWS account. Infrastructure-as-code.

SST is a framework for deploying full-stack applications to your own AWS account using serverless architecture. It supports Next.js, SvelteKit, Nuxt, Remix, and more. Everything deploys to your AWS — Lambda, API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB — with infrastructure defined in TypeScript.

How deployment works

Define your infrastructure in TypeScript using SST's constructs (built on Pulumi in v3). Run npx sst deploy. SST provisions all resources in your AWS account. You get a dashboard for monitoring and a sst dev mode for local development with live Lambda debugging.

Pricing

Free. Open source.

Supported clouds

AWS only.

Best for

Serverless-native teams. Full-stack TypeScript developers. Teams that want IaC with a better developer experience than raw CloudFormation or Terraform.

Why it's not BYOC

SST is an infrastructure-as-code framework, not a PaaS. There's no managed platform layer. You define and manage your own infrastructure. The developer experience is excellent for AWS experts but requires more cloud knowledge than a PaaS.

Limitations

AWS only. The SST team shifted focus to OpenCode (an AI coding agent) in 2025, and SST is now in maintenance mode. Still works, still gets updates, but active development has slowed. Requires solid AWS knowledge. No multi-cloud support.

#Railway (Enterprise BYOC)

BYOC exists, but Enterprise-only.

Railway is one of the most popular shared PaaS platforms. It recently raised $100M and is building an "AI-native cloud." Railway does offer BYOC — but only on the Enterprise plan.

How BYOC works on Railway

Enterprise customers can deploy to their own cloud infrastructure with dedicated VMs. The self-service tiers (Hobby, Pro, Business) run on Railway's shared infrastructure.

Pricing

Enterprise-only. Pricing not publicly listed — contact Railway sales. Standard plans: Hobby ($5/month), Pro ($20/month), Business ($50/seat/month). All standard plans use shared infrastructure.

Supported clouds (BYOC)

Details not publicly documented. Enterprise-only, contact sales.

Best for

Teams that love Railway's DX but need BYOC at enterprise scale.

Limitations

No self-service BYOC. Enterprise-only pricing (not publicly listed). BYOC details aren't public. If you need BYOC today on a normal budget, Railway isn't the answer yet. For teams comparing Railway's shared PaaS against true BYOC, see AZIN vs Railway.

#Render

No BYOC. Included to clarify the difference.

Render is a popular shared PaaS. It does not offer BYOC at any tier. Every deployment runs on Render's infrastructure.

Render is included here to illustrate what BYOC is not. On Render, you deploy to their servers, in their regions, on their hardware. You don't control the underlying instance types, networking, or data residency beyond the regions they offer.

Render is excellent for what it does — simple deployments with good DX. But if you need infrastructure ownership, data sovereignty, or cloud-direct pricing, Render is not an option.

#BYOC platform comparison table

All pricing and feature data verified as of February 2026.

#How to choose the right BYOC platform

You want the simplest BYOC experience

AZIN. GCP BYOC with no Kubernetes overhead and scale-to-zero. The fastest path from code to production in your own GCP account. AWS and Azure on the roadmap.

You want managed Kubernetes

Porter. Full K8s under the hood, abstracted behind a clean UI. Be aware of the ~$225/month base cost on AWS.

You're all-in on AWS

Flightcontrol. ECS-based, standard AWS primitives, clean IAM integration. No Kubernetes. No multi-cloud.

You need the widest cloud coverage

Northflank. Six cloud providers plus on-premises. BYOC on all plans including the free tier.

You want maximum control, minimum cost

Coolify or Kamal. Self-hosted, open source, free. You manage the servers.

You want serverless on AWS

SST. Infrastructure-as-code with the best DX in the serverless space. Note: maintenance mode since 2025.

#True BYOC vs. self-hosted vs. shared PaaS

These three categories are distinct.

True BYOC

The PaaS provisions and manages resources in your cloud account. You own the infrastructure. The PaaS owns the developer experience. Examples: AZIN, Porter, Flightcontrol, Northflank.

Self-hosted

You install a PaaS on your own servers. You manage the servers, the PaaS, and the apps. More control, more responsibility. Examples: Coolify, Kamal.

Shared PaaS

The platform runs everything on their infrastructure. You don't see or control the underlying compute. Simplest experience, least control. Examples: Railway, Render, Heroku, Fly.io.

The right choice depends on your compliance needs, scale, and how much infrastructure you want to manage.

#The cost math: when BYOC saves money

Shared PaaS platforms charge per-resource with built-in margin. BYOC platforms charge a flat platform fee plus your cloud costs at direct pricing.

The crossover point is roughly $300-500/month in compute. Below that, shared PaaS is simpler and comparable in cost. Above that, BYOC savings grow linearly.

At $2,000/month in compute on a shared PaaS, you might pay $800-1,200 for the same workload on BYOC (platform fee + cloud-direct pricing). At $10,000/month, the gap widens further — especially if you use reserved instances or committed-use discounts.

Scale-to-zero on BYOC platforms like AZIN means you pay nothing during idle periods. On shared PaaS, minimum instance costs often still apply.

#Common concerns about BYOC

"I don't want to manage infrastructure"

You don't. That's the point of BYOC. The PaaS manages deployments, networking, scaling, and TLS. You just happen to own the cloud account where resources live.

"Isn't it more expensive to start?"

Sometimes. Kubernetes-based BYOC platforms (Porter, Northflank) have a base cost for the cluster. Non-K8s platforms (AZIN, Flightcontrol) can start cheaper. Coolify and Kamal are free.

"I don't have cloud expertise"

True BYOC platforms abstract most cloud complexity. You connect your account, push code, and the platform handles provisioning. You'll need to manage billing and IAM, but not VPCs, security groups, or container orchestration.

#Frequently asked questions