Containarium Cloud vs Smol Machines

Containarium Cloud costs $0.02 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Containarium Cloud runs containers. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated Oct 15, 2026

Containarium Cloud

Hosted Linux boxes for AI agents, reached over SSH.

Isolation: Container
Free tier: Free tier
Max session: Not listed

Visit site Containarium Cloud profile

Smol Machines

Hosted Linux microVMs with their own kernel, for agents and untrusted code.

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

Visit site Smol Machines profile

What is different

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

Field

Containarium Cloud

Smol Machines

vCPU, per hour: Containarium Cloud: $0.02; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Containarium Cloud: Included; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Free tier: Containarium Cloud: Free tier; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Billing: Containarium Cloud: Bundled machine time; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox: Containarium Cloud: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Isolation: Containarium Cloud: Container; Smol Machines: MicroVM

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Containarium Cloudcontainarium.dev/llms.txtcontainarium.dev

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Containarium Cloud: $0.02; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Containarium Cloud: Included; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: Containarium Cloud: Free tier; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: Containarium Cloud: Bundled machine time; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop: Containarium Cloud: After 1440 minutes; Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Containarium Cloud: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation: Containarium Cloud: Container; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs: Containarium Cloud: Not listed; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations: Containarium Cloud: MCP, Claude Code; Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License: Containarium Cloud: Apache-2.0; Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC: Containarium Cloud: Sales-led, on GCP or AWS; Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Containarium Cloud

Smol Machines

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Containarium Cloud: $0.020; Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Containarium Cloud: $0.040; Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Containarium Cloud: $0.080; Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Containarium Cloud fits when

You use MCP or Claude Code.
You want the lower list price: $0.040 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.
You need ISO 27001.

Smol Machines fits when

You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
You need pause and resume.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
You need a sandbox larger than 4 vCPU · 8 GiB.

More comparisons

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Containarium Cloud

Smol Machines

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Containarium Cloud fits when

Smol Machines fits when

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