Freestyle VMs vs SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

Freestyle VMs costs $0.04032 per vCPU-hour. SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes bills memory only, at $0.04572 per GiB-hour. Freestyle VMs runs full VMs and offers GPUs. SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes runs microVMs.

Updated Oct 23, 2026

Freestyle VMs

Full Linux virtual machines for AI agents.

Isolation: Full VM
Free tier: Free plan, $0 forever
Max session: Not listed

Visit site Freestyle VMs profile

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

Isolated microVMs for AI agents that fork from a saved snapshot, part of SF Compute Autoresearch.

Isolation: MicroVM
Free tier: None
Max session: Not listed

Visit site SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes profile

What is different

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

Field

Freestyle VMs

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

vCPU, per hour: Freestyle VMs: $0.04032; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Included
RAM, per GiB-hour: Freestyle VMs: $0.0129; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.04572
Storage: Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Sandbox snapshots $0.10 per GiB-month of deduplicated bytes, $0.05 per GiB-month in cold storage
Free tier: Freestyle VMs: Free plan, $0 forever; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: None
Paid plan from: Freestyle VMs: $50 / month; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Billing: Freestyle VMs: Per second; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Memory only
Largest sandbox: Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Freestyle VMs: Up to 400; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Up to 4,096
Isolation: Freestyle VMs: Full VM; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MicroVM
Integrations: Freestyle VMs: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Freestyle VMsfreestyle.sh/pricingfreestyle.sh

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxesautoresearch.sfcompute.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Freestyle VMs: $0.04032; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Included
RAM, per GiB-hour: Freestyle VMs: $0.0129; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.04572
Storage: Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Sandbox snapshots $0.10 per GiB-month of deduplicated bytes, $0.05 per GiB-month in cold storage
Free tier: Freestyle VMs: Free plan, $0 forever; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: None
Paid plan from: Freestyle VMs: $50 / month; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Billing: Freestyle VMs: Per second; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Memory only

Limits

Max session: Freestyle VMs: Not listed; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Idle stop: Freestyle VMs: Not listed; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Freestyle VMs: Up to 400; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Up to 4,096

Platform

Isolation: Freestyle VMs: Full VM; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MicroVM
GPU: Freestyle VMs:; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Snapshots: Freestyle VMs:; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes:
Pause and resume: Freestyle VMs:; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes:

Developer

SDKs: Freestyle VMs: JavaScript; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Integrations: Freestyle VMs: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code

Trust

License: Freestyle VMs: Not listed; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
BYOC: Freestyle VMs: Not listed; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Freestyle VMs

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Freestyle VMs: $0.066; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.091
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Freestyle VMs: $0.132; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.183
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Freestyle VMs: $0.264; SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.366

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Freestyle VMs fits when

You need GPUs.
You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
You use the OpenAI Agents SDK or the Claude Agent SDK.
You want the lower list price: $0.132 against $0.183 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes fits when

You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
You use MCP.
You want one rate for memory, with CPU included.

More comparisons

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Freestyle VMs

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Freestyle VMs fits when

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes fits when

More comparisons

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