BoxCompute vs Runtime

BoxCompute costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour and Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour. BoxCompute runs full VMs and has no session limit. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

BoxCompute

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
$5 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Max session
No limit

Runtime

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

BoxCompute
Runtime
vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxCompute: Included
Runtime: $0.0075
Free tier
BoxCompute: $5 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Billing
BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
Runtime: Active CPU time only
Idle stop
BoxCompute: After 30 minutes
Runtime: After 5 minutes
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 4 vCPU · 16 GiB
Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxCompute: Up to 8
Runtime: Up to 200
Isolation
BoxCompute: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
Snapshots
BoxCompute: No
Runtime:
SDKs
BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Integrations
BoxCompute: Claude Code, MCP
Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
BoxCompute: $0.10
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxCompute: Included
Runtime: $0.0075
Storage
BoxCompute: Not listed
Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
Free tier
BoxCompute: $5 credit, one time, valid 14 days
Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Paid plan from
BoxCompute: Not listed
Runtime: Pay as you go
Billing
BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
Runtime: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
BoxCompute: No limit
Runtime: No limit
Idle stop
BoxCompute: After 30 minutes
Runtime: After 5 minutes
Largest sandbox
BoxCompute: 4 vCPU · 16 GiB
Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxCompute: Up to 8
Runtime: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation
BoxCompute: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
GPU
BoxCompute: Not listed
Runtime: No
Snapshots
BoxCompute: No
Runtime:
Pause and resume
BoxCompute:
Runtime:

Developer

SDKs
BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Integrations
BoxCompute: Claude Code, MCP
Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

BoxCompute
Runtime
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.100
Runtime: $0.040
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.200
Runtime: $0.080
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
BoxCompute: $0.400
Runtime: $0.160

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

BoxCompute fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

Runtime fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK or LangChain.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.080 against $0.200 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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