Fly.io Sprites vs Shellbox

Fly.io Sprites costs $0.0385 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Fly.io Sprites runs Firecracker microVMs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Fly.io Sprites

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
$30 trial credit
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.

Fly.io Sprites
Shellbox
vCPU, per hour
Fly.io Sprites: $0.0385
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
Fly.io Sprites: $0.021875
Shellbox: Included
Storage
Fly.io Sprites: $0.000683 per GiB-hour
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Billing
Fly.io Sprites: Active CPU time only
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Integrations
Fly.io Sprites: MCP, OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Code
Shellbox: Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Fly.io Sprites: $0.0385
Shellbox: $0.01
RAM, per GiB-hour
Fly.io Sprites: $0.021875
Shellbox: Included
Storage
Fly.io Sprites: $0.000683 per GiB-hour
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Free tier
Fly.io Sprites: $30 trial credit
Shellbox: Not listed
Paid plan from
Fly.io Sprites: Pay as you go
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Fly.io Sprites: Active CPU time only
Shellbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: No limit
Idle stop
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Largest sandbox
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: Up to 16

Platform

Isolation
Fly.io Sprites: Firecracker microVM
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
Snapshots
Fly.io Sprites:
Shellbox:
Pause and resume
Fly.io Sprites:
Shellbox:

Developer

SDKs
Fly.io Sprites: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
Shellbox: Not listed
Integrations
Fly.io Sprites: MCP, OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Code
Shellbox: Claude Code

Trust

License
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed
BYOC
Fly.io Sprites: Not listed
Shellbox: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Fly.io Sprites
Shellbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Fly.io Sprites: $0.082
Shellbox: $0.010
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Fly.io Sprites: $0.165
Shellbox: $0.020
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Fly.io Sprites: $0.329
Shellbox: $0.040

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Fly.io Sprites fits when

  • You use MCP or the OpenAI Agents SDK.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR.

Shellbox fits when

  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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