BoxCompute vs Shellbox
BoxCompute costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. BoxCompute runs full VMs and has no session limit. Shellbox 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
Shellbox
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
What is different
7 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
BoxCompute
Shellbox
- vCPU, per hour
- BoxCompute: $0.10
- Shellbox: $0.01
- Idle stop
- BoxCompute: After 30 minutes
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- BoxCompute: 4 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- BoxCompute: Up to 8
- Shellbox: Up to 16
- Isolation
- BoxCompute: Full VM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- Snapshots
- BoxCompute: No
- Shellbox:
- Integrations
- BoxCompute: Claude Code, MCP
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
BoxComputeboxcompute
Shellboxshellbox
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- BoxCompute: $0.10
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- BoxCompute: Included
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- BoxCompute: Not listed
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Free tier
- BoxCompute: $5 credit, one time, valid 14 days
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Paid plan from
- BoxCompute: Not listed
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Billing
- BoxCompute: Bundled machine time
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Limits
- Max session
- BoxCompute: No limit
- Shellbox: No limit
- Idle stop
- BoxCompute: After 30 minutes
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- BoxCompute: 4 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- BoxCompute: Up to 8
- Shellbox: Up to 16
Platform
- Isolation
- BoxCompute: Full VM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- BoxCompute: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Snapshots
- BoxCompute: No
- Shellbox:
- Pause and resume
- BoxCompute:
- Shellbox:
Developer
- SDKs
- BoxCompute: Python, TypeScript
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Integrations
- BoxCompute: Claude Code, MCP
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Trust
- License
- BoxCompute: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- BYOC
- BoxCompute: Enterprise pilot on your hardware or cloud account
- Shellbox: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
BoxCompute
Shellbox
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- BoxCompute: $0.100
- Shellbox: $0.010
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- BoxCompute: $0.200
- Shellbox: $0.020
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- BoxCompute: $0.400
- Shellbox: $0.040
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
BoxCompute fits when
- You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
- You use MCP.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
- You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.
Shellbox fits when
- You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
- You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.200 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
- You need snapshots.
- You need a sandbox larger than 4 vCPU · 16 GiB.
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