Mosaic Sandbox vs Smol Machines

Mosaic Sandbox costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Mosaic Sandbox runs Firecracker microVMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Mosaic Sandbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
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

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

Mosaic Sandbox
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
Mosaic Sandbox: $0.025
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Mosaic Sandbox: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Mosaic Sandbox: Free
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Billing
Mosaic Sandbox: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Mosaic Sandbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Mosaic Sandbox: Up to 200
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Mosaic Sandbox: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
Mosaic Sandbox:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
Mosaic Sandbox: Python, TypeScript, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Mosaic Sandbox: $0.025
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Mosaic Sandbox: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Mosaic Sandbox: Free
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Mosaic Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Mosaic Sandbox: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Mosaic Sandbox: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Mosaic Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Mosaic Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Mosaic Sandbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Mosaic Sandbox: Up to 200
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Mosaic Sandbox: Firecracker microVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Mosaic Sandbox: No
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Mosaic Sandbox:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
Mosaic Sandbox:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Mosaic Sandbox: Python, TypeScript, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Mosaic Sandbox: LangChain, MCP, Claude Code, Vercel AI SDK
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
Mosaic Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Mosaic Sandbox: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Mosaic Sandbox
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Mosaic Sandbox: $0.025
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Mosaic Sandbox: $0.050
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Mosaic Sandbox: $0.100
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Mosaic Sandbox fits when

  • You use LangChain, MCP, Claude Code or the Vercel AI SDK.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.050 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.

Smol Machines fits when

  • 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 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

Related