Freestyle VMs vs Shellbox
Freestyle VMs costs $0.04032 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Freestyle VMs runs full VMs and offers GPUs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.
Updated
Freestyle VMs
- Isolation
- Full VM
- Free tier
- Free plan, $0 forever
- Max session
- Not listed
Shellbox
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
What is different
9 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Freestyle VMs
Shellbox
- vCPU, per hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.04032
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.0129
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Paid plan from
- Freestyle VMs: $50 / month
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Freestyle VMs: Per second
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
- Largest sandbox
- Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Freestyle VMs: Up to 400
- Shellbox: Up to 16
- Isolation
- Freestyle VMs: Full VM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- Integrations
- Freestyle VMs: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Freestyle VMsfreestyle
Shellboxshellbox
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.04032
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.0129
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Free tier
- Freestyle VMs: Free plan, $0 forever
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Paid plan from
- Freestyle VMs: $50 / month
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Freestyle VMs: Per second
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Limits
- Max session
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Shellbox: No limit
- Idle stop
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Freestyle VMs: Up to 400
- Shellbox: Up to 16
Platform
- Isolation
- Freestyle VMs: Full VM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- Freestyle VMs:
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Snapshots
- Freestyle VMs:
- Shellbox:
- Pause and resume
- Freestyle VMs:
- Shellbox:
Developer
- SDKs
- Freestyle VMs: JavaScript
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Integrations
- Freestyle VMs: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Trust
- License
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- BYOC
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Freestyle VMs
Shellbox
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.066
- Shellbox: $0.010
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.132
- Shellbox: $0.020
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.264
- Shellbox: $0.040
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich 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 need a desktop in the sandbox.
Shellbox fits when
- You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
- You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
- You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.132 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
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