E2B vs Smol Machines

E2B costs $0.0504 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. E2B runs Firecracker microVMs and limits a session to 24 hours. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

E2B

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
$100 credit, one time
Max session
24 hours

Smol Machines

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

What is different

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

E2B
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
E2B: $0.0504
Smol Machines: $0.05
Storage
E2B: Free
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Paid plan from
E2B: $150 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
E2B: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
E2B: 8 vCPU · 8 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
E2B: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
E2B: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
E2B:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
E2B: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
E2B: $0.0504
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
E2B: $0.0162
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
E2B: Free
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
E2B: $100 credit, one time
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
E2B: $150 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
E2B: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
E2B: 24 hours
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
E2B: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
E2B: 8 vCPU · 8 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
E2B: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
E2B: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
E2B: No
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
E2B:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
E2B:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
E2B: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
E2B: LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, MCP, Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
E2B: Apache-2.0
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
E2B: Enterprise plan
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

E2B
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
E2B: $0.083
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
E2B: $0.166
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
E2B: $0.331
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

E2B fits when

  • You use LangChain, the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, MCP or Claude Code.
  • You need snapshots.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.
  • You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.165 against $0.166 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 8 vCPU · 8 GiB.

More comparisons

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