DigitalOcean Harness Runtime vs OpenPond Sandboxes

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime costs $0.044 per vCPU-hour and OpenPond Sandboxes costs $0.072 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean Harness Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs. OpenPond Sandboxes runs Firecracker microVMs.

Updated Oct 23, 2026

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

Managed microVM sandboxes for AI agents and their code.

Isolation: Firecracker microVM
Free tier: $5 credit for new DigitalOcean customers
Max session: Not listed

Visit site DigitalOcean Harness Runtime profile

OpenPond Sandboxes

Isolated cloud sandboxes for agent work, controlled from a TypeScript SDK.

Isolation: Firecracker microVM
Free tier: Free plan with limited monthly usage, 1 sandbox at a time
Max session: Not listed

Visit site OpenPond Sandboxes profile

What is different

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

Field

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

OpenPond Sandboxes

vCPU, per hour: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.072
RAM, per GiB-hour: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.0234
Storage: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.00012 per GiB-hour
Free tier: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $5 credit for new DigitalOcean customers; OpenPond Sandboxes: Free plan with limited monthly usage, 1 sandbox at a time
Paid plan from: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Pay as you go; OpenPond Sandboxes: $10 / month
Billing: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Active CPU time only; OpenPond Sandboxes: Per second
Concurrent sandboxes: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100; OpenPond Sandboxes: Up to 10
SDKs: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Python; OpenPond Sandboxes: TypeScript

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

DigitalOcean Harness Runtimedigitalocean.com/pricing/harness-runtimedigitalocean.com

OpenPond Sandboxesopenpond.ai/docs/services/sandbox-compute/pricing-and-budgetsopenpond.ai

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.072
RAM, per GiB-hour: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.0234
Storage: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.00012 per GiB-hour
Free tier: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $5 credit for new DigitalOcean customers; OpenPond Sandboxes: Free plan with limited monthly usage, 1 sandbox at a time
Paid plan from: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Pay as you go; OpenPond Sandboxes: $10 / month
Billing: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Active CPU time only; OpenPond Sandboxes: Per second

Limits

Max session: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed; OpenPond Sandboxes: Not listed
Idle stop: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: After 15 minutes; OpenPond Sandboxes: After 15 minutes
Largest sandbox: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB; OpenPond Sandboxes: Not listed
Concurrent sandboxes: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100; OpenPond Sandboxes: Up to 10

Platform

Isolation: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Firecracker microVM; OpenPond Sandboxes: Firecracker microVM
GPU: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed; OpenPond Sandboxes: Not listed
Snapshots: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:; OpenPond Sandboxes:
Pause and resume: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:; OpenPond Sandboxes:

Developer

SDKs: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Python; OpenPond Sandboxes: TypeScript
Integrations: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Claude Code, MCP; OpenPond Sandboxes: Not listed

Trust

License: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed; OpenPond Sandboxes: Not listed
BYOC: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed; OpenPond Sandboxes: Guided AWS install

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

OpenPond Sandboxes

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.063; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.119
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.126; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.238
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.252; OpenPond Sandboxes: $0.475

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime fits when

You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
You use Claude Code or MCP.
You want the lower list price: $0.126 against $0.238 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

OpenPond Sandboxes fits when

You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

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DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

OpenPond Sandboxes

What is different

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Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime fits when

OpenPond Sandboxes fits when

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