Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox vs Shardflux

Shardflux costs $0.04 per vCPU-hour. Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox runs microVMs. Shardflux runs Firecracker microVMs and offers GPUs.

Updated Oct 15, 2026

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Managed microVM sandboxes for AI agent workloads.

Isolation: MicroVM
Free tier: Not listed
Max session: Not listed

Visit site Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox profile

Shardflux

Serverless VMs for cloud agents that park when idle and keep their state.

Isolation: Firecracker microVM
Free tier: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Max session: Not listed

Visit site Shardflux profile

What is different

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

Field

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Shardflux

Storage: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: First 30 GiB free while running, extra at the cloud disk price; Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Paid plan from: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Pay as you go; Shardflux: $9 / month
Billing: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Per second; Shardflux: Active CPU time only
Isolation: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: MicroVM; Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
GPU: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: No; Shardflux:

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandboxalibabacloud.com/help/en/cs/user-guide/agent-sandboxalibabacloud.com

Shardfluxshardflux.dev/#pricingshardflux.dev

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: $0.04
RAM, per GiB-hour: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: $0.015
Storage: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: First 30 GiB free while running, extra at the cloud disk price; Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Free tier: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Paid plan from: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Pay as you go; Shardflux: $9 / month
Billing: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Per second; Shardflux: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Not listed
Idle stop: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: MicroVM; Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
GPU: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: No; Shardflux:
Snapshots: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox:; Shardflux:
Pause and resume: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox:; Shardflux:

Developer

SDKs: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
Integrations: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Claude Code, MCP

Trust

License: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Not listed
BYOC: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Shardflux

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: $0.070
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: $0.140
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Shardflux: $0.280

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox fits when

You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.

Shardflux fits when

You need GPUs.
You use Claude Code or MCP.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Shardflux

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox fits when

Shardflux fits when

More comparisons

Related

Compare

Pricing

Browse