# Modal vs OpenFaaS

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Modal

| Attribute | Modal | OpenFaaS |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 56.4 (72% (medium)) | 41.7 (42% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 55 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 26,249 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A serverless cloud platform designed for running AI inference, training, batch processing, and interactive development. It automatically scales compute resources on demand, offers integrated logging and metrics, and provides a Python-native SDK for defining infrastructure as code. It is indexed under Serverless & Edge Platforms.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"What is Modal?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Modal offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $0 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"Is Modal free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Modal supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"What platforms does Modal support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Modal, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"Can Modal be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 4 integrations for Modal, including AWS Marketplace, GCP Marketplace, Datadog and Sentry.io. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"What does Modal integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and HIPAA for Modal. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Modal not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://modal.com/docs/guide/security","question":"What security certifications does Modal have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Modal is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://modal.com/pricing","question":"Where is Modal available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"Open-source serverless framework that abstracts cloud provider differences, allowing you to deploy and run functions across multiple clouds, on-premises, and Kubernetes with extended execution timeouts and support for many programming languages. It is indexed under Serverless & Edge Platforms.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/","question":"What is OpenFaaS?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"OpenFaaS offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $1250 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/pricing/","question":"Is OpenFaaS free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"OpenFaaS supports Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/pricing/","question":"What platforms does OpenFaaS support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. OpenFaaS can be deployed cloud / SaaS, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/","question":"Can OpenFaaS be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 20 integrations for OpenFaaS, including Apache Kafka, AWS SQS, AWS SNS, GCP Pub/Sub, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, MQTT and Cron, plus 12 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/pricing/","question":"What does OpenFaaS integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"OpenFaaS is available worldwide. The vendor is headquartered in the United Kingdom.","source":"https://www.openfaas.com/","question":"Where is OpenFaaS available?","confidence":0.75}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"air_gapped":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A cloud platform that automatically scales applications based on demand and charges only for actual compute consumed, measured per CPU cycle. Provides direct GPU access for AI inference and training, with support for Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Go. | A framework for deploying functions to Kubernetes with automatic scaling, event-driven triggers, multi-tenancy support, and enterprise features including SSO, RBAC, and direct engineering support. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","triggers":"HTTP, cron/scheduled, events","languages":"Python","cold_start":"low","cli_and_iac":true,"http_trigger":true,"durable_state":true,"scale_to_zero":true,"custom_runtime":true,"scheduled_cron":true,"edge_distributed":true,"runtime_substrate":"container","observability_builtin":true}` | `{"hosting":"both","triggers":"HTTP, Cron, Kafka, RabbitMQ, GCP Pub/Sub, PostgreSQL, AWS SNS/SQS","languages":"extensive language support","cli_and_iac":true,"http_trigger":true,"max_duration":"extended execution timeouts","scale_to_zero":true,"custom_runtime":true,"scheduled_cron":true,"runtime_substrate":"container","observability_builtin":true}` |
| integrations.count | 2 | 12 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"AWS Marketplace"},{"name":"GCP Marketplace"},{"name":"Datadog","native":true,"category":"observability","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Sentry.io","native":true,"category":"observability","direction":"outbound"}]` | `[{"name":"Apache Kafka"},{"name":"AWS SQS"},{"name":"AWS SNS"},{"name":"GCP Pub/Sub"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MQTT"},{"name":"Cron"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Linkerd"},{"name":"NATS JetStream"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Zoom"},{"name":"Google Docs"},{"name":"Gmail"},{"name":"DigitalOcean"},{"name":"Crunchbase"},{"name":"Kafka","native":true,"category":"event","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"AWS SNS/SQS","native":true,"category":"event","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Discord","native":false,"category":"chat","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Gumroad","native":false,"category":"commerce","direction":"outbound"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"hqCountry":"GB","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Starter","summary":"$0/month base + compute usage ($30/month free credits)","features":["3 workspace seats","100 containers","10 GPU concurrency","Limited scheduled and web functions","Real-time metrics and logs","Region selection"],"minSeats":3,"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For small teams and independent developers","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"compute":"$30/month","containers":"100","gpu_concurrency":"10"}},{"free":false,"name":"Team","summary":"$250/month base + compute usage ($100/month free credits)","features":["Unlimited workspace seats","5000 containers","50 GPU concurrency","Unlimited scheduled functions","Custom domains","Static IP proxy","Deployment rollbacks","Environment-level budgets"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":250,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For startups and larger organizations","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"compute":"$100/month","containers":"5000","gpu_concurrency":"50"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["Volume-based discounts","Embedded ML engineering services","Private Slack support","Audit logs","SAML SSO","HIPAA compliance"],"description":"For organizations requiring security and compliance","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Non-preemptible execution","components":[{"of":"base compute pricing","kind":"percentage","rate":3}]}],"summary":"Free tier with $30/month compute. Pay-per-second metering: CPUs from $0.0000131/core/sec, GPUs from $0.000164/sec (T4) to $0.001972/sec (B300), memory at $0.00000222/GiB/sec.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://modal.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-09-18T15:59:18.208Z","startingPrice":{"amount":250,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Community Edition","summary":"Free for personal use; 60-day limit for commercial use","features":["Legacy UI portal","REST API","Basic metrics & observability","Cron trigger"],"description":"Personal use with 60-day commercial restriction","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"14-day trial available; custom pricing","features":["Scale to zero","Kafka/RabbitMQ/GCP Pub/Sub/PostgreSQL/AWS SNS/SQS triggers","UI dashboard","Grafana dashboards","Kubernetes Custom Resources (CRD)","Air-gapped/offline deployment","Self-service email support","Multi-tenant hosting","Namespace sandboxing"],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing; requires separate support agreement","features":["Enterprise support with SLA","Direct engineering support via Slack","Annual architecture review","Function Builder REST API","Identity and Access Management","Single Sign-On (OpenID Connect)","Role-Based Access Control","API audit logging via webhooks"],"contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free community edition; subscription-based standard and enterprise tiers","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.openfaas.com/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-10-15T20:23:16.138Z","freeTrialDays":14}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | high | low |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":250,"currency":"USD"}` | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| release.cadence_days | - | 136 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/openfaas/faas/releases/tag/0.27.14","date":"2026-07-02T09:09:13Z","type":"prerelease","version":"0.27.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/openfaas/faas/releases/tag/0.27.13","date":"2025-08-29T14:24:04Z","type":"stable","version":"0.27.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/openfaas/faas/releases/tag/0.27.12","date":"2024-12-09T09:51:08Z","type":"stable","version":"0.27.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/openfaas/faas/releases/tag/0.27.11","date":"2024-11-29T14:52:05Z","type":"stable","version":"0.27.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/openfaas/faas/releases/tag/0.27.10","date":"2024-11-18T21:47:16Z","type":"stable","version":"0.27.10"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.certifications | `[{"name":"SOC 2 Type II","level":"Type II","status":"active"}]` | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 4.2 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | https://modal.com/docs/guide/security | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fopenfaas%2Ffaas&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Serverless & Edge Platforms)

| Capability | Modal | OpenFaaS |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Execution substrate | Container | Container |
| Language / runtime breadth | Python | extensive language support |
| **Reach** |  |  |
| Runs at global edge PoPs | ✓ | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Scale to zero | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Performance** |  |  |
| Cold-start profile | Low | - |
| **Limits** |  |  |
| Max execution duration | - | extended execution timeouts |
| **Integration** |  |  |
| Event source breadth | HTTP, cron/scheduled, events | HTTP, Cron, Kafka, RabbitMQ, GCP Pub/Sub, PostgreSQL, AWS SNS/SQS |
| HTTP endpoint trigger | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cron / scheduled invocations | ✓ | ✓ |
| **State** |  |  |
| Durable state / workflow primitive | ✓ | - |
| **Flexibility** |  |  |
| Bring-your-own runtime / container | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Built-in logs / metrics / tracing | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Extensibility** |  |  |
| CLI + IaC / framework support | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:21:59.981Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*