Northflank Sandboxes vs SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

Northflank Sandboxes costs $0.01667 per vCPU-hour. SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes bills memory only, at $0.04572 per GiB-hour. Northflank Sandboxes runs Cloud Hypervisor microVMs, offers GPUs and has no session limit. SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes runs microVMs.

Updated

Northflank Sandboxes

Isolation
Cloud Hypervisor microVM
Free tier
Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
Max session
No limit

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
None
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

Northflank Sandboxes
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes
vCPU, per hour
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.01667
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Included
RAM, per GiB-hour
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.00833
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.04572
Storage
Northflank Sandboxes: Persistent disk $0.11657 per GiB per month, also when paused. Ephemeral storage is free.
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Sandbox snapshots $0.10 per GiB-month of deduplicated bytes, $0.05 per GiB-month in cold storage
Free tier
Northflank Sandboxes: Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: None
Billing
Northflank Sandboxes: Per second
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Memory only
Largest sandbox
Northflank Sandboxes: 20 vCPU · 40 GiB
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Isolation
Northflank Sandboxes: Cloud Hypervisor microVM
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MicroVM

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxesautoresearch.sfcompute.com

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.01667
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Included
RAM, per GiB-hour
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.00833
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.04572
Storage
Northflank Sandboxes: Persistent disk $0.11657 per GiB per month, also when paused. Ephemeral storage is free.
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Sandbox snapshots $0.10 per GiB-month of deduplicated bytes, $0.05 per GiB-month in cold storage
Free tier
Northflank Sandboxes: Free Sandbox plan, up to $20 of resources a month, no card
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: None
Paid plan from
Northflank Sandboxes: Pay as you go
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Billing
Northflank Sandboxes: Per second
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Memory only

Limits

Max session
Northflank Sandboxes: No limit
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Idle stop
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Northflank Sandboxes: 20 vCPU · 40 GiB
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Up to 4,096

Platform

Isolation
Northflank Sandboxes: Cloud Hypervisor microVM
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MicroVM
GPU
Northflank Sandboxes:
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Snapshots
Northflank Sandboxes:
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes:
Pause and resume
Northflank Sandboxes:
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes:

Developer

SDKs
Northflank Sandboxes: Python, JavaScript
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
Integrations
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: MCP, Claude Code

Trust

License
Northflank Sandboxes: Not listed
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed
BYOC
Northflank Sandboxes: Runs in your own cloud or VPC
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Northflank Sandboxes
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.033
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.091
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.067
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.183
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Northflank Sandboxes: $0.133
SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes: $0.366

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Northflank Sandboxes fits when

  • You need GPUs.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.067 against $0.183 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.

SF Compute Autoresearch Sandboxes fits when

  • You use MCP or Claude Code.
  • You want one rate for memory, with CPU included.

More comparisons

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