boxd vs Smol Machines
boxd costs $0.047 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. boxd runs microVMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
boxd
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $30 credit with a payment method
- Max session
- No limit
Smol Machines
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $100 credit, one time
- Max session
- Not listed
What is different
8 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
boxd
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- boxd: $0.047
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- boxd: $0.014
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- boxd: $0.000096 per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- boxd: $30 credit with a payment method
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Billing
- boxd: Per second
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
- Largest sandbox
- boxd: 8 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Snapshots
- boxd:
- Smol Machines: No
- SDKs
- boxd: TypeScript, Python
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
boxdboxd
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- boxd: $0.047
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- boxd: $0.014
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- boxd: $0.000096 per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- boxd: $30 credit with a payment method
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- boxd: Pay as you go
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- boxd: Per second
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- boxd: No limit
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- boxd: After 240 minutes
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- boxd: 8 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- boxd: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- boxd: MicroVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- boxd: Not listed
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- boxd:
- Smol Machines: No
- Pause and resume
- boxd:
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- boxd: TypeScript, Python
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Integrations
- boxd: Claude Code, MCP
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Trust
- License
- boxd: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- boxd: Custom plan
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
boxd
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- boxd: $0.075
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- boxd: $0.150
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- boxd: $0.300
- Smol Machines: $0.330
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
boxd fits when
- You use Claude Code or MCP.
- You want the lower list price: $0.150 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
- You need snapshots.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
Smol Machines fits when
- You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
- You want the larger free credit: $100 against $30.
- Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
- You need a sandbox larger than 8 vCPU · 32 GiB.
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