Beam Sandboxes vs Modal

Beam Sandboxes costs $0.0675 per vCPU-hour and Modal costs $0.070956 per vCPU-hour. Beam Sandboxes runs containers, offers GPUs and has no session limit. Modal runs gVisor, offers GPUs and limits a session to 24 hours.

Updated

Beam Sandboxes

Isolation
Container
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

Modal

Isolation
gVisor
Free tier
$30 credit every month
Max session
24 hours

What is different

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

Beam Sandboxes
Modal
vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Modal: $0.070956
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Modal: $0.024012
Max session
Beam Sandboxes: No limit
Modal: 24 hours
Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Modal: gVisor
SDKs
Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Modal: $0.070956
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Modal: $0.024012
Storage
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
Free tier
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: $30 credit every month
Paid plan from
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Pay as you go
Billing
Beam Sandboxes: Per second
Modal: Per second

Limits

Max session
Beam Sandboxes: No limit
Modal: 24 hours
Idle stop
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
Concurrent sandboxes
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed

Platform

Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Modal: gVisor
GPU
Beam Sandboxes:
Modal:
Snapshots
Beam Sandboxes:
Modal:
Pause and resume
Beam Sandboxes:
Modal: Not listed

Developer

SDKs
Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
Integrations
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Claude Agent SDK

Trust

License
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
BYOC
Beam Sandboxes: In your AWS, GCP, or Azure account
Modal: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Beam Sandboxes
Modal
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.114
Modal: $0.119
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.227
Modal: $0.238
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.454
Modal: $0.476

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Beam Sandboxes fits when

  • A session must run longer than 24 hours.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.227 against $0.238 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need pause and resume.
  • You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

Modal fits when

  • You use the Claude Agent SDK.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.
  • You need HIPAA and GDPR.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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