Lizard Sandboxes vs Smol Machines

Lizard Sandboxes costs $0.0081 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Lizard Sandboxes runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Lizard Sandboxes

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
7-day trial with $5 in trial credits
Max session
No limit

Smol Machines

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

What is different

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

Lizard Sandboxes
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
Lizard Sandboxes: $0.0081
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Lizard Sandboxes: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Lizard Sandboxes: Local disk is in the rate. Persistent Volumes $0.14 per GB a month
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Lizard Sandboxes: 7-day trial with $5 in trial credits
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Lizard Sandboxes: $19 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Lizard Sandboxes: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Lizard Sandboxes: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Lizard Sandboxes: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Lizard Sandboxes: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
Lizard Sandboxes:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
Lizard Sandboxes: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Lizard Sandboxes: $0.0081
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Lizard Sandboxes: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Lizard Sandboxes: Local disk is in the rate. Persistent Volumes $0.14 per GB a month
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Lizard Sandboxes: 7-day trial with $5 in trial credits
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Lizard Sandboxes: $19 / month
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Lizard Sandboxes: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Lizard Sandboxes: No limit
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Lizard Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Lizard Sandboxes: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Lizard Sandboxes: Up to 100
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Lizard Sandboxes: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Lizard Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Lizard Sandboxes:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
Lizard Sandboxes:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Lizard Sandboxes: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Lizard Sandboxes: Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
Lizard Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Lizard Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Lizard Sandboxes
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Lizard Sandboxes: $0.008
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Lizard Sandboxes: $0.016
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Lizard Sandboxes: $0.032
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Lizard Sandboxes fits when

  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.016 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
  • 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.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 8 vCPU · 16 GiB.

More comparisons

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