Hugging Face Sandboxes vs Runtime

Hugging Face Sandboxes costs $0.005 per vCPU-hour and Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour. Hugging Face Sandboxes runs full VMs, offers GPUs and limits a session to 24 hours. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Hugging Face Sandboxes

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
24 hours

Runtime

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Hugging Face Sandboxes
Runtime
vCPU, per hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Included
Runtime: $0.0075
Billing
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Bundled machine time
Runtime: Active CPU time only
Max session
Hugging Face Sandboxes: 24 hours
Runtime: No limit
Idle stop
Hugging Face Sandboxes: After 10 minutes
Runtime: After 5 minutes
Isolation
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Hugging Face Sandboxes:
Runtime: No
SDKs
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Python
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Runtime: $0.025
RAM, per GiB-hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Included
Runtime: $0.0075
Storage
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
Free tier
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
Paid plan from
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Runtime: Pay as you go
Billing
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Bundled machine time
Runtime: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Hugging Face Sandboxes: 24 hours
Runtime: No limit
Idle stop
Hugging Face Sandboxes: After 10 minutes
Runtime: After 5 minutes
Largest sandbox
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Up to 200

Platform

Isolation
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Full VM
Runtime: Firecracker microVM
GPU
Hugging Face Sandboxes:
Runtime: No
Snapshots
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime:
Pause and resume
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime:

Developer

SDKs
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Python
Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
Integrations
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code

Trust

License
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Not listed
BYOC
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Runtime: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Hugging Face Sandboxes
Runtime
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Runtime: $0.040
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.010
Runtime: $0.080
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.020
Runtime: $0.160

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Hugging Face Sandboxes fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.010 against $0.080 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need SOC 2 Type II and GDPR.

Runtime fits when

  • A session must run longer than 24 hours.
  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You use the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP or Claude Code.
  • You need snapshots.

More comparisons

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