DigitalOcean Harness Runtime vs Smol Machines

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime costs $0.044 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean Harness Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
Not listed

Smol Machines

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

What is different

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

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.044
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.0095
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Session volumes $0.05 per GiB-month
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Active CPU time only
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: After 15 minutes
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.063
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.126
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
DigitalOcean Harness Runtime: $0.252
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

DigitalOcean Harness Runtime fits when

  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.126 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.

More comparisons

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