DigitalOcean MicroVMs vs Shardflux

DigitalOcean MicroVMs costs $0.022 per vCPU-hour and Shardflux costs $0.04 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean MicroVMs runs Firecracker microVMs. Shardflux runs Firecracker microVMs and offers GPUs.

Updated

DigitalOcean MicroVMs

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
Not listed

Shardflux

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Shardflux
vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Shardflux: $0.04
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Shardflux: $0.015
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Shardflux: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Shardflux: $0.04
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Shardflux: $0.015
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
Free tier
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
Paid plan from
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: $9 / month
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Shardflux: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed
Idle stop
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: After 5 minutes
Shardflux: Not listed
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Firecracker microVM
Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
GPU
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux:
Snapshots
DigitalOcean MicroVMs:
Shardflux:
Pause and resume
DigitalOcean MicroVMs:
Shardflux:

Developer

SDKs
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
Integrations
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: Claude Code, MCP

Trust

License
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed
BYOC
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shardflux: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Shardflux
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.039
Shardflux: $0.070
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.078
Shardflux: $0.140
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.156
Shardflux: $0.280

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

DigitalOcean MicroVMs fits when

  • You want the lower list price: $0.078 against $0.140 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

Shardflux fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You use Claude Code or MCP.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

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