DigitalOcean Harness Runtime vs Shellbox

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime costs $0.044 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean Harness Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

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

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095
Shellbox: Included
Storage
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Billing
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Active CPU time only
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Idle stop
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: After 15 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100
Shellbox: Up to 16
Integrations
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Claude Code, MCP
Shellbox: Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095
Shellbox: Included
Storage
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $5 credit for new DigitalOcean customers
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Pay as you go
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Active CPU time only
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: After 15 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

Isolation
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Firecracker microVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Snapshots
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:
Shellbox:
Pause and resume
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:
Shellbox:

Developer

SDKs
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Python
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Claude Code, MCP
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.063
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.126
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.252
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime fits when

  • You use MCP.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need SOC 2 and HIPAA.

Shellbox fits when

  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.126 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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