boat vs Zipbox

boat costs $0.009 per vCPU-hour and Zipbox costs $0.00685 per vCPU-hour. boat runs full VMs and has no session limit. Zipbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

boat

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
7-day free trial with 25 hours of compute
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

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

boat
Zipbox
vCPU, per hour
boat: $0.009
Zipbox: $0.00685
Free tier
boat: 7-day free trial with 25 hours of compute
Zipbox: $25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Paid plan from
boat: $20 / month
Zipbox: Pay as you go
Largest sandbox
boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Zipbox: 6 vCPU · 16 GiB
Isolation
boat: Full VM
Zipbox: Firecracker microVM
Snapshots
boat:
Zipbox: No
SDKs
boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
Integrations
boat: MCP, Claude Code
Zipbox: MCP, Claude Code, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
boat: $0.009
Zipbox: $0.00685
RAM, per GiB-hour
boat: Included
Zipbox: Included
Storage
boat: Free
Zipbox: Free
Free tier
boat: 7-day free trial with 25 hours of compute
Zipbox: $25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Paid plan from
boat: $20 / month
Zipbox: Pay as you go
Billing
boat: Bundled machine time
Zipbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
boat: No limit
Zipbox: No limit
Idle stop
boat: Not listed
Zipbox: Not listed
Largest sandbox
boat: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Zipbox: 6 vCPU · 16 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
boat: Up to 2,000
Zipbox: Not listed

Platform

Isolation
boat: Full VM
Zipbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
boat: No
Zipbox: Not listed
Snapshots
boat:
Zipbox: No
Pause and resume
boat: No
Zipbox: No

Developer

SDKs
boat: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
Integrations
boat: MCP, Claude Code
Zipbox: MCP, Claude Code, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain

Trust

License
boat: Not listed
Zipbox: Not listed
BYOC
boat: Not listed
Zipbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

boat
Zipbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
boat: $0.009
Zipbox: $0.007
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
boat: $0.018
Zipbox: $0.014
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
boat: $0.036
Zipbox: $0.027

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

boat fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You need snapshots.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 6 vCPU · 16 GiB.

Zipbox fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use the Claude Agent SDK, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK or LangChain.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.014 against $0.018 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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