Depot Sandboxes vs Shellbox

Depot Sandboxes costs $0.18 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Depot Sandboxes runs microVMs and limits a session to 24 hours. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Depot Sandboxes

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
7-day free trial, no credit card
Max session
24 hours

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Depot Sandboxes
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
Depot Sandboxes: $0.18
Shellbox: $0.01
Paid plan from
Depot Sandboxes: $20 / month
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Depot Sandboxes: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Max session
Depot Sandboxes: 24 hours
Shellbox: No limit
Isolation
Depot Sandboxes: MicroVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
Pause and resume
Depot Sandboxes: No
Shellbox:

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Depot Sandboxes: $0.18
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
Depot Sandboxes: Included
Shellbox: Included
Storage
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
Depot Sandboxes: 7-day free trial, no credit card
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
Depot Sandboxes: $20 / month
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Depot Sandboxes: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
Depot Sandboxes: 24 hours
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

Isolation
Depot Sandboxes: MicroVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Snapshots
Depot Sandboxes:
Shellbox:
Pause and resume
Depot Sandboxes: No
Shellbox:

Developer

SDKs
Depot Sandboxes: TypeScript
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
Depot Sandboxes: Claude Code
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
Depot Sandboxes: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Depot Sandboxes
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Depot Sandboxes: $0.180
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Depot Sandboxes: $0.360
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Depot Sandboxes: $0.720
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Depot Sandboxes fits when

  • You need SOC 2 Type II.

Shellbox fits when

  • A session must run longer than 24 hours.
  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.360 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need pause and resume.

More comparisons

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