boat vs Smol Machines

boat costs $0.009 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. boat runs full VMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated Oct 15, 2026

boat

Persistent Ubuntu VMs with SSH, Docker and a desktop.

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

Visit site boat profile

Smol Machines

Hosted Linux microVMs with their own kernel, for agents and untrusted code.

Isolation: MicroVM
Free tier: $100 credit, one time
Max session: Not listed

Visit site Smol Machines profile

What is different

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

Field

boat

Smol Machines

vCPU, per hour: boat: $0.009; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: boat: Included; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: boat: Free; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: boat: Free trial with 25 hours; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: boat: $20 / month; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: boat: Bundled machine time; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox: boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: boat: Up to 2,000; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation: boat: Full VM; Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots: boat:; Smol Machines: No
SDKs: boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

boatdocs.boat.dev/pricingdocs.boat.dev

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: boat: $0.009; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: boat: Included; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: boat: Free; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: boat: Free trial with 25 hours; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: boat: $20 / month; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: boat: Bundled machine time; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session: boat: No limit; Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop: boat: Not listed; Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox: boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: boat: Up to 2,000; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation: boat: Full VM; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: boat: No; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: boat:; Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume: boat:; Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs: boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations: boat: MCP, Claude Code; Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License: boat: Not listed; Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC: boat: Not listed; Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

boat

Smol Machines

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: boat: $0.009; Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: boat: $0.018; Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: boat: $0.036; Smol Machines: $0.330

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 use MCP or Claude Code.
You want the lower list price: $0.018 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
You need snapshots.

Smol Machines fits when

You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

boat

Smol Machines

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

boat fits when

Smol Machines fits when

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