Daytona vs Smol Machines

Daytona costs $0.0504 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Daytona runs containers, offers GPUs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated Oct 15, 2026

Daytona

Stateful sandboxes that boot from OCI-compliant images.

Isolation: Container
Free tier: $200 free compute
Max session: No limit

Visit site Daytona 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

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

Field

Daytona

Smol Machines

vCPU, per hour: Daytona: $0.0504; Smol Machines: $0.05
Storage: Daytona: $0.000108 per GiB-hour after 5 free GiB; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: Daytona: $200 free compute; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Billing: Daytona: Per second; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox: Daytona: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Isolation: Daytona: Container; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: Daytona:; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: Daytona:; Smol Machines: No
SDKs: Daytona: Python, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, Java; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Daytonadaytona.io/pricing

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Daytona: $0.0504; Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour: Daytona: $0.0162; Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage: Daytona: $0.000108 per GiB-hour after 5 free GiB; Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier: Daytona: $200 free compute; Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from: Daytona: Pay as you go; Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing: Daytona: Per second; Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session: Daytona: No limit; Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop: Daytona: After 15 minutes; Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Daytona: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB; Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Daytona: Not listed; Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation: Daytona: Container; Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU: Daytona:; Smol Machines: No
Snapshots: Daytona:; Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume: Daytona:; Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs: Daytona: Python, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, Java; Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations: Daytona: LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, MCP, Claude Code; Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License: Daytona: Not listed; Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC: Daytona: Enterprise plan; Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Daytona

Smol Machines

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Daytona: $0.083; Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Daytona: $0.166; Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Daytona: $0.331; Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Daytona fits when

You need GPUs.
You use LangChain, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK, MCP or Claude Code.
You need snapshots.
You need a desktop in the sandbox.

Smol Machines fits when

You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
You want the lower list price: $0.165 against $0.166 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

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Daytona

Smol Machines

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Daytona fits when

Smol Machines fits when

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