Namespace Devboxes vs Smol Machines

Namespace Devboxes costs $0.06 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Namespace Devboxes runs full VMs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Namespace Devboxes

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
30-day free trial
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.

Namespace Devboxes
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
Namespace Devboxes: $0.06
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Namespace Devboxes: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Namespace Devboxes: $0.20 per GB-month for storage used
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Namespace Devboxes: 30-day free trial
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Billing
Namespace Devboxes: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Namespace Devboxes: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Namespace Devboxes: Up to 50
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Namespace Devboxes: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
SDKs
Namespace Devboxes: TypeScript, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Namespace Devboxes: $0.06
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Namespace Devboxes: Included
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Namespace Devboxes: $0.20 per GB-month for storage used
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Namespace Devboxes: 30-day free trial
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Namespace Devboxes: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Namespace Devboxes: Bundled machine time
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Namespace Devboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Namespace Devboxes: After 15 minutes
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Namespace Devboxes: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Namespace Devboxes: Up to 50
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

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

Developer

SDKs
Namespace Devboxes: TypeScript, Go
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Namespace Devboxes: Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
Namespace Devboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Namespace Devboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Namespace Devboxes
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Namespace Devboxes: $0.060
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Namespace Devboxes: $0.120
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Namespace Devboxes: $0.240
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Namespace Devboxes fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.120 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need a desktop in the sandbox.

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.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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