Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox vs Smol Machines

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

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

Smol Machines

Hosted Linux microVMs with their own kernel, for agents and untrusted code.

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

Visit site Smol Machines profile

What is different

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

Field

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Smol Machines

Storage: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: First 30 GiB free while running, extra at the cloud disk price; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Billing: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Per second; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Snapshots: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox:; Smol Machines: No

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

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

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: First 30 GiB free while running, extra at the cloud disk price; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Pay as you go; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Per second; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

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

Platform

Isolation: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: MicroVM; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: No; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox:; Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox:; Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations: Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox: Not listed; Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Smol Machines

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

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox fits when

You need snapshots.
You need a desktop in the sandbox.

Smol Machines fits when

You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

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Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox

Smol Machines

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox fits when

Smol Machines fits when

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