DigitalOcean MicroVMs vs Shellbox

DigitalOcean MicroVMs costs $0.022 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean MicroVMs runs Firecracker microVMs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

DigitalOcean MicroVMs

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
Not listed

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Shellbox: Included
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Idle stop
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: After 5 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Shellbox: Included
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: After 5 minutes
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

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

Developer

SDKs
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.039
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.078
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.156
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

DigitalOcean MicroVMs fits when

  • You need SOC 2 and HIPAA.

Shellbox fits when

  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.078 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

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