Beam Sandboxes vs Shellbox

Beam Sandboxes costs $0.0675 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Beam Sandboxes runs containers, offers GPUs and has no session limit. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Beam Sandboxes

Isolation
Container
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Beam Sandboxes
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Shellbox: Included
Storage
Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Paid plan from
Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Beam Sandboxes: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Concurrent sandboxes
Beam Sandboxes: Up to 1,000
Shellbox: Up to 16
Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Shellbox: Included
Storage
Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Beam Sandboxes: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
Beam Sandboxes: No limit
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Beam Sandboxes: Up to 1,000
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Beam Sandboxes:
Shellbox: Not listed
Snapshots
Beam Sandboxes:
Shellbox:
Pause and resume
Beam Sandboxes:
Shellbox:

Developer

SDKs
Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
Beam Sandboxes: AGPL-3.0
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
Beam Sandboxes: In your AWS, GCP, or Azure account
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Beam Sandboxes
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.114
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.227
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.454
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which 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.

Shellbox fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.227 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

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