BoxCompute vs Caged

BoxCompute costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour and Caged costs $0.06 per vCPU-hour. BoxCompute runs full VMs and limits a session to 42 hours. Caged runs Firecracker microVMs and limits a session to 4 hours.

Updated

BoxCompute

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
$10 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Max session
42 hours

Caged

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Free plan, 5 sandboxes a day
Max session
4 hours

What is different

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

BoxCompute
Caged
vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
Caged: $0.06
Free tier
BoxCompute: $10 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Caged: Free plan, 5 sandboxes a day
Max session
BoxCompute: 42 hours
Caged: 4 hours
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 1.5 vCPU · 3 GiB
Caged: 8 vCPU · 8 GiB
Isolation
BoxCompute: Full VM
Caged: Firecracker microVM

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
Caged: $0.06
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxCompute: Included
Caged: Included
Storage
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: Free
Free tier
BoxCompute: $10 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Caged: Free plan, 5 sandboxes a day
Paid plan from
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: $29 / month
Billing
BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
Caged: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
BoxCompute: 42 hours
Caged: 4 hours
Idle stop
BoxCompute: After 15 minutes
Caged: Not listed
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 1.5 vCPU · 3 GiB
Caged: 8 vCPU · 8 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: Up to 5

Platform

Isolation
BoxCompute: Full VM
Caged: Firecracker microVM
GPU
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: Not listed
Snapshots
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: Not listed
Pause and resume
BoxCompute:
Caged: Not listed

Developer

SDKs
BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
Caged: Not listed
Integrations
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: MCP

Trust

License
BoxCompute: Not listed
Caged: Not listed
BYOC
BoxCompute: Enterprise pilot on your hardware or cloud account
Caged: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

BoxCompute
Caged
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.100
Caged: $0.060
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.200
Caged: $0.120
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.400
Caged: $0.240

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

BoxCompute fits when

  • A session must run longer than 4 hours.
  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You need pause and resume.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.

Caged fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use MCP.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.120 against $0.200 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 1.5 vCPU · 3 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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