A PaaS in your account, on three clouds or on many
Porter gives teams the Heroku experience inside their own cloud account. It provisions EKS, GKE or AKS with networking and a registry, then deploys your services from Git with autoscaling and preview environments. Porter says hundreds of fast-growing AI companies use it, and it raised a $20M Series A in January 2026.
Ankra covers the same path from repository to running service, and starts one step earlier. It also builds the Kubernetes cluster on ordinary servers, which opens up European providers and private infrastructure. After the first deploy it keeps going, with platform add-ons, vulnerability ranking, cost comparison, backups and an AI that operates it all.
If your cloud is AWS, Google Cloud or Azure and you want a polished PaaS on it, Porter fits. If you want to choose any provider, including European ones, and need the platform around the app, Ankra covers more.
Where the cluster comes from
Porter supports AWS, Google Cloud and Azure, and provisioning a cluster takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Its Enterprise plan lists on-premises installation.
Ankra builds kubeadm or k3s on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean, AWS EC2 and Proxmox VE, creates EKS, GKE, AKS, DOKS, OVHcloud MKS and UpCloud UKS, and imports any conformant cluster. On clusters it builds, Ankra handles upgrades, node groups and power schedules, with node autoscaling on the five public clouds. Cloud Cost can price the same cluster on every provider it supports.
Shipping the code
Porter builds in GitHub Actions in your repository, from a Dockerfile or buildpacks, and creates a preview environment for every pull request. Its autoscaling covers CPU, memory, custom metrics and queue depth.
Ankra’s Applications open a setup pull request with build files, and Ankra Pipelines run tests, rootless builds and Semgrep, Checkov and Trivy scans inside your own cluster. A policy gate decides which image may be published, and every successful build deploys. Pull-request previews give each change its own environment. Applications and previews work with GitHub repositories, and some documented pipeline stage kinds do not run yet.
Databases, security and compliance
Porter’s managed datastores are Postgres and Redis, on AWS only for now. Its compliance mode configures AWS infrastructure so SOC 2 and HIPAA checks pass in tools such as Vanta and Drata, and image scanning uses the cloud’s own scanner. Porter itself holds SOC 2 Type II. For a team that needs SOC 2 on AWS quickly, that is a strong offer.
Ankra’s Security Center lists vulnerabilities in running workloads across every cluster and ranks them by CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue and FIRST’s EPSS scores, with SBOMs and compliance evidence for CIS, NSA/CISA and Pod Security Standards. Stacks install any Helm chart in dependency order, and backups write to a bucket you own. Ankra’s managed database services are in closed beta, and Ankra itself is not yet audited.
AI on both sides
Porter’s hosted MCP server lets your coding agent read logs, change a service and redeploy it. Its DevOps Agent is in alpha and read-only, and Porter also offers sandboxes for agent workloads.
Ankra’s AI is built into the platform. AI Insights analyses firing alerts, the AI Gateway reviews pull requests and opens fix pull requests, and the assistant drafts stacks from a description. Every write waits for a person by default, and an MCP server gives your own tools the same operations.
When to choose Ankra, and when to choose Porter
Choose Ankra when you want Kubernetes on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean or Proxmox VE, need to bring existing clusters, or want security ranking, cost comparison, backups and AI operations in the same product.
Choose Porter when
- your cloud is AWS, Google Cloud or Azure and you want a mature PaaS on it
- you need SOC 2 or HIPAA controls on AWS infrastructure quickly
- managed Postgres and Redis on AWS cover your data needs
Compare the work that remains
- Create the foundation. On your target provider, note who builds the cluster and how long it takes.
- Ship a release. Include tests, scans, a preview and a rollback.
- Add a platform component. Install an operator or monitoring stack and note how it is versioned.
- Investigate a vulnerability. Find every affected workload.
- Compare total cost. Porter charges per requested vCPU and GB of memory. Ankra charges per worker vCPU after the first 30. Both sit on top of your cloud or server bill.
See Porter’s pricing and Ankra’s pricing.
Reviewed 9 October 2026 against Porter’s documentation and pricing. Product scope and plans can change.