Buddy Sandboxes vs Northflank Sandboxes

Buddy Sandboxes costs $0.0144 per vCPU-hour and Northflank Sandboxes costs $0.01667 per vCPU-hour. Buddy Sandboxes runs full VMs and has no session limit. Northflank Sandboxes runs Cloud Hypervisor microVMs, offers GPUs and has no session limit.

Updated

Buddy Sandboxes

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

Northflank Sandboxes

Isolation
Cloud Hypervisor microVM
Free tier
Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Buddy Sandboxes
Northflank Sandboxes
vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.01667
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.00833
Storage
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.00011 per GiB-hour
Northflank Sandboxes: Persistent disk $0.11657 per GiB per month, also when paused. Ephemeral storage is free.
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Northflank Sandboxes: Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Northflank Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Largest sandbox
Buddy Sandboxes: 12 vCPU · 24 GiB
Northflank Sandboxes: 20 vCPU · 40 GiB
Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Northflank Sandboxes: Cloud Hypervisor microVM
SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Northflank Sandboxes: Python, JavaScript

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.01667
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.00833
Storage
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.00011 per GiB-hour
Northflank Sandboxes: Persistent disk $0.11657 per GiB per month, also when paused. Ephemeral storage is free.
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Northflank Sandboxes: Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Northflank Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Billing
Buddy Sandboxes: Per second
Northflank Sandboxes: Per second

Limits

Max session
Buddy Sandboxes: No limit
Northflank Sandboxes: No limit
Idle stop
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Buddy Sandboxes: 12 vCPU · 24 GiB
Northflank Sandboxes: 20 vCPU · 40 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed

Platform

Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Northflank Sandboxes: Cloud Hypervisor microVM
GPU
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Northflank Sandboxes:
Snapshots
Buddy Sandboxes:
Northflank Sandboxes:
Pause and resume
Buddy Sandboxes:
Northflank Sandboxes:

Developer

SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Northflank Sandboxes: Python, JavaScript
Integrations
Buddy Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed

Trust

License
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
BYOC
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Northflank Sandboxes: Runs in your own cloud or VPC

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Buddy Sandboxes
Northflank Sandboxes
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.043
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.033
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.086
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.067
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.173
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.133

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Buddy Sandboxes fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use MCP or Claude Code.
  • You need GDPR.

Northflank Sandboxes fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.067 against $0.086 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related