Beam Sandboxes vs Runtime
Beam Sandboxes costs $0.0675 per vCPU-hour and Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour. Beam Sandboxes runs containers, offers GPUs and has no session limit. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.
Updated
Beam Sandboxes
- Isolation
- Container
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
Runtime
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Max session
- No limit
What is different
9 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Beam Sandboxes
Runtime
- vCPU, per hour
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
- Runtime: $0.025
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Storage
- Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Paid plan from
- Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
- Runtime: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Beam Sandboxes: Per second
- Runtime: Active CPU time only
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Beam Sandboxes: Up to 1,000
- Runtime: Up to 200
- Isolation
- Beam Sandboxes: Container
- Runtime: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- Beam Sandboxes:
- Runtime: No
- SDKs
- Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
- Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Beam Sandboxesbeam
Runtimewithruntime
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
- Runtime: $0.025
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Storage
- Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Free tier
- Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
- Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Paid plan from
- Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
- Runtime: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Beam Sandboxes: Per second
- Runtime: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Beam Sandboxes: No limit
- Runtime: No limit
- Idle stop
- Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
- Runtime: After 5 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
- Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Beam Sandboxes: Up to 1,000
- Runtime: Up to 200
Platform
- Isolation
- Beam Sandboxes: Container
- Runtime: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- Beam Sandboxes:
- Runtime: No
- Snapshots
- Beam Sandboxes:
- Runtime:
- Pause and resume
- Beam Sandboxes:
- Runtime:
Developer
- SDKs
- Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
- Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
- Integrations
- Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
- Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code
Trust
- License
- Beam Sandboxes: AGPL-3.0
- Runtime: Not listed
- BYOC
- Beam Sandboxes: In your AWS, GCP, or Azure account
- Runtime: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Beam Sandboxes
Runtime
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.114
- Runtime: $0.040
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.227
- Runtime: $0.080
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Beam Sandboxes: $0.454
- Runtime: $0.160
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Beam Sandboxes fits when
- You need GPUs.
- You want an open-source platform (AGPL-3.0) that you can self-host.
- You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.
- You need SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA.
Runtime fits when
- You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
- You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
- You use the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP or Claude Code.
- You want the lower list price: $0.080 against $0.227 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
More comparisons
Agent Sandbox vs Beam Sandboxes- Agent Sandbox vs Runtime
Agent37 Cloud vs Beam Sandboxes- Agent37 Cloud vs Runtime
AgentBay vs Beam Sandboxes- AgentBay vs Runtime
- Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox vs Beam Sandboxes
- Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox vs Runtime