Modal vs Sandbox as a Service
Modal costs $0.070956 per vCPU-hour and Sandbox as a Service costs $0.045 per vCPU-hour. Modal runs gVisor, offers GPUs and limits a session to 24 hours. Sandbox as a Service runs full VMs and limits a session to 24 hours.
Updated
Sandbox as a Service
- Isolation
- Full VM
- Free tier
- $5 credit
- Max session
- 24 hours
What is different
7 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Modal
Sandbox as a Service
- vCPU, per hour
- Modal: $0.070956
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Modal: $0.024012
- Sandbox as a Service: Included
- Free tier
- Modal: $30 credit every month
- Sandbox as a Service: $5 credit
- Billing
- Modal: Per second
- Sandbox as a Service: Bundled machine time
- Isolation
- Modal: gVisor
- Sandbox as a Service: Full VM
- SDKs
- Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
- Sandbox as a Service: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
- Integrations
- Modal: Claude Agent SDK
- Sandbox as a Service: MCP
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Modalmodal
Sandbox as a Servicesandbox-as-a-service
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Modal: $0.070956
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Modal: $0.024012
- Sandbox as a Service: Included
- Storage
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Free tier
- Modal: $30 credit every month
- Sandbox as a Service: $5 credit
- Paid plan from
- Modal: Pay as you go
- Sandbox as a Service: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Modal: Per second
- Sandbox as a Service: Bundled machine time
Limits
- Max session
- Modal: 24 hours
- Sandbox as a Service: 24 hours
- Idle stop
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Up to 20
Platform
- Isolation
- Modal: gVisor
- Sandbox as a Service: Full VM
- GPU
- Modal:
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Snapshots
- Modal:
- Sandbox as a Service:
- Pause and resume
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
Developer
- SDKs
- Modal: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Go
- Sandbox as a Service: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
- Integrations
- Modal: Claude Agent SDK
- Sandbox as a Service: MCP
Trust
- License
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- BYOC
- Modal: Not listed
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Modal
Sandbox as a Service
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Modal: $0.119
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Modal: $0.238
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.090
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Modal: $0.476
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.180
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Modal fits when
- You need GPUs.
- You use the Claude Agent SDK.
- You want the larger free credit: $30 against $5.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
Sandbox as a Service fits when
- You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
- You use MCP.
- You want the lower list price: $0.090 against $0.238 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
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