Freestyle VMs vs Smol Machines
Freestyle VMs costs $0.04032 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Freestyle VMs runs full VMs and offers GPUs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
Freestyle VMs
- Isolation
- Full VM
- Free tier
- Free plan, $0 forever
- Max session
- Not listed
Smol Machines
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $100 credit, one time
- Max session
- Not listed
What is different
12 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Freestyle VMs
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.04032
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.0129
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Freestyle VMs: Free plan, $0 forever
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Freestyle VMs: $50 / month
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Freestyle VMs: Per second
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
- Largest sandbox
- Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Freestyle VMs: Up to 400
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Isolation
- Freestyle VMs: Full VM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Freestyle VMs:
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Freestyle VMs:
- Smol Machines: No
- SDKs
- Freestyle VMs: JavaScript
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Freestyle VMsfreestyle
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.04032
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Freestyle VMs: $0.0129
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Freestyle VMs: $0.000086 per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Freestyle VMs: Free plan, $0 forever
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Freestyle VMs: $50 / month
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Freestyle VMs: Per second
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Freestyle VMs: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Freestyle VMs: Up to 400
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Freestyle VMs: Full VM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Freestyle VMs:
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Freestyle VMs:
- Smol Machines: No
- Pause and resume
- Freestyle VMs:
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- Freestyle VMs: JavaScript
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Integrations
- Freestyle VMs: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Claude Code
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Trust
- License
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- Freestyle VMs: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Freestyle VMs
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.066
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.132
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Freestyle VMs: $0.264
- Smol Machines: $0.330
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, the Claude Agent SDK or Claude Code.
- You want the lower list price: $0.132 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
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.
- Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
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