exe.dev vs Smol Machines

exe.dev costs $0.0525 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. exe.dev runs full VMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

exe.dev

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
7-day trial with a paid ChatGPT subscription
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.

exe.dev
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
exe.dev: $0.0525
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
exe.dev: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
exe.dev: $0.08 per GiB per month of extra disk
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
exe.dev: 7-day trial with a paid ChatGPT subscription
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
exe.dev: $15 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
exe.dev: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
exe.dev: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Isolation
exe.dev: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
exe.dev: $0.0525
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
exe.dev: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
exe.dev: $0.08 per GiB per month of extra disk
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
exe.dev: 7-day trial with a paid ChatGPT subscription
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
exe.dev: $15 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
exe.dev: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
exe.dev: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
exe.dev: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
exe.dev: Claude Code, MCP
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
exe.dev: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
exe.dev: Enterprise plan
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

exe.dev
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
exe.dev: $0.053
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
exe.dev: $0.105
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
exe.dev: $0.210
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

exe.dev fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use Claude Code or MCP.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.105 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • 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 each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You need pause and resume.

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