Beam Sandboxes vs Zipbox

Beam Sandboxes costs $0.0675 per vCPU-hour and Zipbox costs $0.00685 per vCPU-hour. Beam Sandboxes runs containers, offers GPUs and has no session limit. Zipbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Beam Sandboxes

Isolation
Container
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

Zipbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
$25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Beam Sandboxes
Zipbox
vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Zipbox: $0.00685
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Zipbox: Included
Storage
Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
Zipbox: Free
Paid plan from
Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
Zipbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Beam Sandboxes: Per second
Zipbox: Bundled machine time
Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Zipbox: Firecracker microVM
Snapshots
Beam Sandboxes:
Zipbox: No
Pause and resume
Beam Sandboxes:
Zipbox: No
SDKs
Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.0675
Zipbox: $0.00685
RAM, per GiB-hour
Beam Sandboxes: $0.02304
Zipbox: Included
Storage
Beam Sandboxes: Volumes free up to 1 TB, then $0.021 per GB per month. Snapshots included.
Zipbox: Free
Free tier
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: $25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Paid plan from
Beam Sandboxes: $20 / month
Zipbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Beam Sandboxes: Per second
Zipbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
Beam Sandboxes: No limit
Zipbox: No limit
Idle stop
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: 6 vCPU · 16 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Beam Sandboxes: Up to 1,000
Zipbox: Not listed

Platform

Isolation
Beam Sandboxes: Container
Zipbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Beam Sandboxes:
Zipbox: Not listed
Snapshots
Beam Sandboxes:
Zipbox: No
Pause and resume
Beam Sandboxes:
Zipbox: No

Developer

SDKs
Beam Sandboxes: Python, TypeScript
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
Integrations
Beam Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: MCP, Claude Code, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Beam Sandboxes
Zipbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.114
Zipbox: $0.007
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.227
Zipbox: $0.014
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Beam Sandboxes: $0.454
Zipbox: $0.027

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

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 snapshots.
  • You need pause and resume.

Zipbox fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use MCP, Claude Code, the Claude Agent SDK, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK or LangChain.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.014 against $0.227 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related