Civo
vs
Lightning AI
What's good about each
- Free egress and ingress
- Kubernetes control plane at no cost
- Deploy to locations in Europe and Asia
- GPUs from L40S to B300, reservable for up to 36 months
- API serving open models from the UK
- Billed by the second, interruptible machines 50-80% off
- Studios move between its own cloud, AWS, GCP, Lambda and Nebius
- Owned H100, B200 and GB300 fleet in US datacenters
- Bring your own AWS or GCP account and spend cloud credits
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Civo | Lightning AI | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $5.43 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (xSmall) | -- Not listed | |
| Medium VM | $43.45 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Large) | -- Not listed | |
| Large VM | $139.05 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (CPU Optimized Small) | -- Not listed | |
| Block storage | $10.88 /mo 100 GB | $10.00 /mo 100 GB (Drive) · First 10 GB free | 8% cheaper on Lightning AI |
| Object storage | $10.86 /mo 1 TB | -- Not listed | |
| PostgreSQL | $43.45 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe (Small) | -- Not listed | |
| Load balancer | $10.86 /mo 10,000 concurrent requests | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | Free and unlimited | Not publicly listed |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
Civo offers 6 GPU models, while Lightning AI offers 8. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Civo | Lightning AI | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
10 configs · 4 configs
|
$2.99 /GPU/hr On-demand | $5.45 /GPU/hr On-demand | 45% cheaper on Civo |
|
B200
3 configs · 1 config
|
$3.79 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | $9.86 /GPU/hr On-demand | Different terms |
|
H200
10 configs · 4 configs
|
$3.49 /GPU/hr On-demand | $4.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | 22% cheaper on Civo |
|
A100
40 configs · 8 configs
|
$1.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | 30% cheaper on Civo |
|
L40S
20 configs · 3 configs
|
$1.29 /GPU/hr On-demand | $2.97 /GPU/hr On-demand | 57% cheaper on Civo |
|
B300
4 configs
|
$5.49 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | -- | Civo only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
4 configs
|
-- | $4.63 /GPU/hr On-demand | Lightning AI only |
|
L4
4 configs
|
-- | $0.79 /GPU/hr On-demand | Lightning AI only |
|
T4
2 configs
|
-- | $0.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | Lightning AI only |
Civo bills on-demand and reserved (6, 12, 24 or 36 months); Lightning AI bills on-demand. The line under each price names the billing type shown.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Civo | Lightning AI |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II, AWS and GCP clouds only |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | -- |
| HIPAA | -- | AWS and GCP clouds only |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Civo | Lightning AI |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 | 2019 |
| Headquarters | UK | USA |
| Locations | 6 | -- |
| Example customers | Defense.com, TensorGo, Limitless Technologies, Techdome, KubeNine | Nvidia, Cursor, Cisco, Runway, Supercell, Stability AI, Black Forest Labs |
| Website | civo.com | lightning.ai |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Civo and Lightning AI against other cloud providers.
Our data for Civo was last updated on Oct. 28, 2026, and for Lightning AI on Oct. 28, 2026.