Buddy Sandboxes vs Runtime

Buddy Sandboxes costs $0.0144 per vCPU-hour and Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour. Buddy Sandboxes runs full VMs and has no session limit. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Buddy Sandboxes

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

Runtime

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Buddy Sandboxes
Runtime
vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Runtime: $0.0075
Storage
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.00011 per GiB-hour
Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Runtime: Pay as you go
Billing
Buddy Sandboxes: Per second
Runtime: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Buddy Sandboxes: 12 vCPU · 24 GiB
Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Integrations
Buddy Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.0144
Runtime: $0.0075
Storage
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.00011 per GiB-hour
Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
Free tier
Buddy Sandboxes: $1 of usage credit every month
Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Paid plan from
Buddy Sandboxes: $29 / month
Runtime: Pay as you go
Billing
Buddy Sandboxes: Per second
Runtime: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Buddy Sandboxes: No limit
Runtime: No limit
Idle stop
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: After 5 minutes
Largest sandbox
Buddy Sandboxes: 12 vCPU · 24 GiB
Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation
Buddy Sandboxes: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: No
Snapshots
Buddy Sandboxes:
Runtime:
Pause and resume
Buddy Sandboxes:
Runtime:

Developer

SDKs
Buddy Sandboxes: TypeScript
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Integrations
Buddy Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code
Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code

Trust

License
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Not listed
BYOC
Buddy Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Buddy Sandboxes
Runtime
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.043
Runtime: $0.040
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.086
Runtime: $0.080
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Buddy Sandboxes: $0.173
Runtime: $0.160

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Buddy Sandboxes fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You need SOC 2 Type II and GDPR.

Runtime fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK or LangChain.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.080 against $0.086 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

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