Buddy Sandboxes vs Modal

Buddy Sandboxes costs $0.0144 per vCPU-hour and Modal costs $0.070956 per vCPU-hour. Buddy Sandboxes runs full VMs and has no session limit. Modal runs gVisor, offers GPUs and limits a session to 24 hours.

Updated

Buddy Sandboxes

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
$1 of usage credit every month
Max session
No limit

Modal

Isolation
gVisor
Free tier
$30 credit every month
Max session
24 hours

What is different

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

Buddy Sandboxes
Modal
vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Modal: $0.070956
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Modal: $0.024012
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Modal: $30 credit every month
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Modal: Pay as you go
Max session
Buddy Sandboxes: No limit
Modal: 24 hours
Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Modal: gVisor
SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
Integrations
Buddy Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Modal: Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code, LangChain

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Modal: $0.070956
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Modal: $0.024012
Storage
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.00011 per GiB-hour
Modal: Not listed
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Modal: $30 credit every month
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Modal: Pay as you go
Billing
Buddy Sandboxes: Per second
Modal: Per second

Limits

Max session
Buddy Sandboxes: No limit
Modal: 24 hours
Idle stop
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Buddy Sandboxes: 12 vCPU · 24 GiB
Modal: Not listed
Concurrent sandboxes
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed

Platform

Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Modal: gVisor
GPU
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal:
Snapshots
Buddy Sandboxes:
Modal:
Pause and resume
Buddy Sandboxes:
Modal: Not listed

Developer

SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
Integrations
Buddy Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Modal: Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code, LangChain

Trust

License
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed
BYOC
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Modal: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Buddy Sandboxes
Modal
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.043
Modal: $0.119
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.086
Modal: $0.238
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.173
Modal: $0.476

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Buddy Sandboxes fits when

  • A session must run longer than 24 hours.
  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use MCP.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.086 against $0.238 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

Modal fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You use the Claude Agent SDK or LangChain.
  • You want the larger free credit: $30 against $1.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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