BoxLite Cloud vs Shellbox

BoxLite Cloud costs $0.0504 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. BoxLite Cloud runs microVMs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

BoxLite Cloud

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
$100 credit
Max session
Not listed

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

BoxLite Cloud
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
BoxLite Cloud: $0.0504
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxLite Cloud: $0.0144
Shellbox: Included
Storage
BoxLite Cloud: $0.00018 per GiB-hour
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Billing
BoxLite Cloud: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Idle stop
BoxLite Cloud: After 15 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
BoxLite Cloud: 4 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxLite Cloud: Up to 1,000
Shellbox: Up to 16
Isolation
BoxLite Cloud: MicroVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
Snapshots
BoxLite Cloud: No
Shellbox:
Integrations
BoxLite Cloud: Claude Code, MCP
Shellbox: Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
BoxLite Cloud: $0.0504
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
BoxLite Cloud: $0.0144
Shellbox: Included
Storage
BoxLite Cloud: $0.00018 per GiB-hour
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
BoxLite Cloud: $100 credit
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
BoxLite Cloud: Pay as you go
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
BoxLite Cloud: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
BoxLite Cloud: Not listed
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
BoxLite Cloud: After 15 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
BoxLite Cloud: 4 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
BoxLite Cloud: Up to 1,000
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

Isolation
BoxLite Cloud: MicroVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
BoxLite Cloud: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Snapshots
BoxLite Cloud: No
Shellbox:
Pause and resume
BoxLite Cloud:
Shellbox:

Developer

SDKs
BoxLite Cloud: Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
BoxLite Cloud: Claude Code, MCP
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
BoxLite Cloud: Apache-2.0
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
BoxLite Cloud: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

BoxLite Cloud
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
BoxLite Cloud: $0.079
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
BoxLite Cloud: $0.158
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
BoxLite Cloud: $0.317
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

BoxLite Cloud fits when

  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You use MCP.

Shellbox fits when

  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.158 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 4 vCPU · 32 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related