Brimble Sandboxes vs Smol Machines

Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Brimble Sandboxes runs gVisor and limits a session to 6 hours. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Brimble Sandboxes

Isolation
gVisor
Free tier
7-day Developer plan trial, card required
Max session
6 hours

Smol Machines

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
$100 credit, one time
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

Brimble Sandboxes
Smol Machines
Storage
Brimble Sandboxes: Snapshot storage and persistent volumes bill at storage rates
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Brimble Sandboxes: 7-day Developer plan trial, card required
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Brimble Sandboxes: $3 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Brimble Sandboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Brimble Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Brimble Sandboxes: Up to 15
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Brimble Sandboxes: gVisor
Smol Machines: MicroVM
SDKs
Brimble Sandboxes: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
Integrations
Brimble Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Smol Machines: MCP

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Brimble Sandboxes: Snapshot storage and persistent volumes bill at storage rates
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Brimble Sandboxes: 7-day Developer plan trial, card required
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Brimble Sandboxes: $3 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Brimble Sandboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Brimble Sandboxes: 6 hours
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Brimble Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Brimble Sandboxes: Up to 15
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Brimble Sandboxes: gVisor
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Brimble Sandboxes:
Smol Machines:
Pause and resume
Brimble Sandboxes:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Brimble Sandboxes: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
Integrations
Brimble Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Smol Machines: MCP

Trust

License
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Brimble Sandboxes
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Brimble Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Brimble Sandboxes fits when

  • You use Claude Code.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related