Lightning AI
vs
UpCloud
What's good about each
- 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
- Wide range of VPS options at competitive prices
- Good selection of managed services, from databases to object storage to Kubernetes
- Offers a 100% SLA with 50x compensation for service outages
- Based in the EU, may ease GDPR compliance
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Lightning AI | UpCloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | -- Not listed | $3.50 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB storage (Starter) | |
| Medium VM | -- Not listed | $24.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 40 GB storage (Starter) | |
| Large VM | -- Not listed | $92.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (Cloud Native) | |
| Block storage | $10.00 /mo 100 GB (Drive) · First 10 GB free | $25.00 /mo 100 GB (MaxIOPS) | 60% cheaper on Lightning AI |
| Object storage | -- Not listed | $20.00 /mo 1 TB | |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $69.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 10 GB storage (Standard) | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $8.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (Valkey) | |
| Load balancer | -- Not listed | Free 1 node, 1,000 sessions (Essentials) | |
| Egress | Not publicly listed | Free within fair usage policy 1-48 TB per instance, then reduced bandwidth |
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
Lightning AI offers 8 GPU models, while UpCloud offers 6. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Lightning AI | UpCloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
4 configs · 8 configs
|
$5.45 /GPU/hr On-demand | $2.50 /GPU/hr On-demand · sold out | 54% cheaper on UpCloud |
|
B200
1 config · 8 configs
|
$9.86 /GPU/hr On-demand | $6.05 /GPU/hr On-demand · sold out | 39% cheaper on UpCloud |
|
RTX PRO 6000
4 configs · 8 configs
|
$4.63 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.88 /GPU/hr On-demand | 59% cheaper on UpCloud |
|
L40S
3 configs · 22 configs
|
$2.97 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.19 /GPU/hr On-demand | 60% cheaper on UpCloud |
|
L4
4 configs · 22 configs
|
$0.79 /GPU/hr On-demand | $0.69 /GPU/hr On-demand · sold out | 13% cheaper on UpCloud |
|
H200
4 configs
|
$4.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Lightning AI only |
|
A100
8 configs
|
$1.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Lightning AI only |
|
T4
2 configs
|
$0.55 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Lightning AI only |
|
B300
8 configs
|
-- | $5.99 /GPU/hr Spot · sold out | UpCloud only |
Lightning AI bills on-demand; UpCloud bills on-demand and spot. 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 | Lightning AI | UpCloud |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II, AWS and GCP clouds only | Data centers 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 | Lightning AI | UpCloud |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2019 | 2011 |
| Headquarters | USA | Finland |
| Locations | -- | 15 |
| Example customers | Nvidia, Cursor, Cisco, Runway, Supercell, Stability AI, Black Forest Labs | Aiven, Xensam, HackTheBox, LeadDesk |
| Website | lightning.ai | upcloud.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Lightning AI and UpCloud against other cloud providers.
Our data for Lightning AI was last updated on Oct. 28, 2026, and for UpCloud on Oct. 28, 2026.