DigitalOcean MicroVMs vs Smol Machines

DigitalOcean MicroVMs costs $0.022 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. DigitalOcean MicroVMs runs Firecracker microVMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

DigitalOcean MicroVMs

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

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

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Isolation
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
DigitalOcean MicroVMs:
Smol Machines: No

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.022
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.0085
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.05 per GiB per month, charged when running or paused. Checkpoints are charged until deleted.
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: After 5 minutes
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

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

Developer

SDKs
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

DigitalOcean MicroVMs
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.039
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.078
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
DigitalOcean MicroVMs: $0.156
Smol Machines: $0.330

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 $0.165 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.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.

More comparisons

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