Hugging Face Sandboxes vs Zipbox

Hugging Face Sandboxes costs $0.005 per vCPU-hour and Zipbox costs $0.00685 per vCPU-hour. Hugging Face Sandboxes runs full VMs, offers GPUs and limits a session to 24 hours. Zipbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.

Updated

Hugging Face Sandboxes

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
24 hours

Zipbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
$25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Max session
No limit

What is different

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

Hugging Face Sandboxes
Zipbox
vCPU, per hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Zipbox: $0.00685
Max session
Hugging Face Sandboxes: 24 hours
Zipbox: No limit
Isolation
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Full VM
Zipbox: Firecracker microVM
SDKs
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Python
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Zipbox: $0.00685
RAM, per GiB-hour
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Included
Zipbox: Included
Storage
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: Free
Free tier
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: $25 credit after a one-time $5 top-up
Paid plan from
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Zipbox: Pay as you go
Billing
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Bundled machine time
Zipbox: Bundled machine time

Limits

Max session
Hugging Face Sandboxes: 24 hours
Zipbox: No limit
Idle stop
Hugging Face Sandboxes: After 10 minutes
Zipbox: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: 6 vCPU · 16 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: Not listed

Platform

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

Developer

SDKs
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Python
Zipbox: TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
Integrations
Hugging Face Sandboxes: Not listed
Zipbox: MCP, Claude Code, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Hugging Face Sandboxes
Zipbox
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.005
Zipbox: $0.007
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.010
Zipbox: $0.014
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Hugging Face Sandboxes: $0.020
Zipbox: $0.027

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

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 $0.014 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need SOC 2 Type II and GDPR.

Zipbox fits when

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

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related