Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime vs Smol Machines

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime costs $0.0895 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime runs microVMs and limits a session to 8 hours. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated Oct 23, 2026

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime

Hosts AI agents on AWS and runs each user session in its own microVM.

Isolation: MicroVM
Free tier: Not listed
Max session: 8 hours

Visit site Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime 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

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

Field

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime

Smol Machines

vCPU, per hour: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.0895; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.00945; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Session storage is free during preview. Code storage is billed at Amazon ECR or S3 rates; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Largest sandbox: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: 2 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Up to 5,000; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
SDKs: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Python, TypeScript; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
Integrations: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, OpenAI Agents SDK; Smol Machines: MCP

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtimeaws.amazon.com/bedrock/agentcore/pricingaws.amazon.com

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.0895; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.00945; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Session storage is free during preview. Code storage is billed at Amazon ECR or S3 rates; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Not listed; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Pay as you go; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Active CPU time only; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: 8 hours; Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: After 15 minutes; Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: 2 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Up to 5,000; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: MicroVM; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Not listed; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Not listed; Smol Machines:
Pause and resume: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime:; Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Python, TypeScript; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
Integrations: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, OpenAI Agents SDK; Smol Machines: MCP

Trust

License: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Not listed; Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: Not listed; Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime

Smol Machines

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.108; Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.217; Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime: $0.434; Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime fits when

You use the Claude Agent SDK, LangChain or the OpenAI Agents SDK.
You need SOC 2, HIPAA and ISO 27001.

Smol Machines fits when

You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
You want the lower list price: $0.165 against $0.217 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
You need snapshots.
You need a sandbox larger than 2 vCPU · 8 GiB.

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Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime

Smol Machines

What is different

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Pricing

Limits

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