boat vs Shardflux

boat costs $0.009 per vCPU-hour and Shardflux costs $0.04 per vCPU-hour. boat runs full VMs and has no session limit. Shardflux runs Firecracker microVMs and offers GPUs.

Updated

boat

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
Free trial with 25 hours
Max session
No limit

Shardflux

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

boat
Shardflux
vCPU, per hour
boat: $0.009
Shardflux: $0.04
RAM, per GiB-hour
boat: Included
Shardflux: $0.015
Storage
boat: Free
Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Free tier
boat: Free trial with 25 hours
Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Paid plan from
boat: $20 / month
Shardflux: $9 / month
Billing
boat: Bundled machine time
Shardflux: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
boat: Up to 2,000
Shardflux: Up to 200
Isolation
boat: Full VM
Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
GPU
boat: No
Shardflux:
SDKs
boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
Integrations
boat: MCP, Claude Code
Shardflux: Claude Code, MCP

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
boat: $0.009
Shardflux: $0.04
RAM, per GiB-hour
boat: Included
Shardflux: $0.015
Storage
boat: Free
Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Free tier
boat: Free trial with 25 hours
Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Paid plan from
boat: $20 / month
Shardflux: $9 / month
Billing
boat: Bundled machine time
Shardflux: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
boat: No limit
Shardflux: Not listed
Idle stop
boat: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed
Largest sandbox
boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
boat: Up to 2,000
Shardflux: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation
boat: Full VM
Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
GPU
boat: No
Shardflux:
Snapshots
boat:
Shardflux:
Pause and resume
boat:
Shardflux:

Developer

SDKs
boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
Integrations
boat: MCP, Claude Code
Shardflux: Claude Code, MCP

Trust

License
boat: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed
BYOC
boat: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

boat
Shardflux
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
boat: $0.009
Shardflux: $0.070
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
boat: $0.018
Shardflux: $0.140
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
boat: $0.036
Shardflux: $0.280

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

boat fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.018 against $0.140 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

Shardflux fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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