BoxCompute vs ix

BoxCompute costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour and ix costs $0.0288 per vCPU-hour. BoxCompute runs full VMs and limits a session to 42 hours. ix runs full VMs.

Updated

BoxCompute

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

ix

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

BoxCompute
ix
vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
ix: $0.0288
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxCompute: Included
ix: $0.0108
Billing
BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
ix: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 1.5 vCPU · 3 GiB
ix: 100 vCPU · 256 GiB
SDKs
BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
ix: Python, TypeScript, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
ix: $0.0288
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxCompute: Included
ix: $0.0108
Storage
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix: $0.101 per GiB-month stored
Free tier
BoxCompute: $10 credit, one time, valid 14 days
ix: Not listed
Paid plan from
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix: Pay as you go
Billing
BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
ix: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
BoxCompute: 42 hours
ix: Not listed
Idle stop
BoxCompute: After 15 minutes
ix: Not listed
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 1.5 vCPU · 3 GiB
ix: 100 vCPU · 256 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix: Up to 100

Platform

Isolation
BoxCompute: Full VM
ix: Full VM
GPU
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix: Not listed
Snapshots
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix:
Pause and resume
BoxCompute:
ix: Not listed

Developer

SDKs
BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
ix: Python, TypeScript, Rust
Integrations
BoxCompute: Not listed
ix: MCP

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

BoxCompute
ix
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.100
ix: $0.050
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.200
ix: $0.101
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.400
ix: $0.202

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

BoxCompute fits when

  • You need pause and resume.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.
  • You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

ix fits when

  • You use MCP.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.101 against $0.200 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

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