ix vs Smol Machines

ix costs $0.0288 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. ix runs full VMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

ix

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
Not listed

Smol Machines

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
$100 credit, one time
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

ix
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
ix: $0.0288
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
ix: $0.0108
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
ix: $0.101 per GiB-month stored
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Largest sandbox
ix: 100 vCPU · 256 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
ix: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
ix: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
ix:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
ix: Python, TypeScript, Rust
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
ix: $0.0288
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
ix: $0.0108
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
ix: $0.101 per GiB-month stored
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
ix: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
ix: Active CPU time only
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
ix: 100 vCPU · 256 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
ix: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
ix: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
ix:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
ix: Python, TypeScript, Rust
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
ix: MCP
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
ix: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

ix
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
ix: $0.050
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
ix: $0.101
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
ix: $0.202
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

ix fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use MCP.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.101 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You need pause and resume.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related