Agent Sandbox vs Smol Machines

Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Agent Sandbox runs containers. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Agent Sandbox

Isolation
Container
Free tier
$10 credit with a Google sign-in
Max session
Not listed

Smol Machines

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
$100 credit, one time
Max session
Not listed

What is different

5 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.

Agent Sandbox
Smol Machines
Storage
Agent Sandbox: $0.0005/MB for output files
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Agent Sandbox: $10 credit with a Google sign-in
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Billing
Agent Sandbox: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Isolation
Agent Sandbox: Container
Smol Machines: MicroVM
SDKs
Agent Sandbox: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Agent Sandbox: $0.0005/MB for output files
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Agent Sandbox: $10 credit with a Google sign-in
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Agent Sandbox: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Agent Sandbox: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Agent Sandbox: After 5 minutes
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Agent Sandbox: Container
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Agent Sandbox: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Agent Sandbox: Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Agent Sandbox
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Agent Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Agent Sandbox fits when

  • You use Claude Code.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You want the larger free credit: $100 against $10.
  • You need pause and resume.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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