Prime Sandboxes vs Smol Machines

Prime Sandboxes costs $0.02 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Prime Sandboxes runs microVMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Prime Sandboxes

Isolation
MicroVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

Smol Machines

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

What is different

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

Prime Sandboxes
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
Prime Sandboxes: $0.02
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Prime Sandboxes: $0.0125
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Prime Sandboxes: $0.0002 per GiB-hour
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Billing
Prime Sandboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Prime Sandboxes: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Prime Sandboxes: Up to 1,024
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Snapshots
Prime Sandboxes:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
Prime Sandboxes: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Prime Sandboxes: $0.02
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Prime Sandboxes: $0.0125
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Prime Sandboxes: $0.0002 per GiB-hour
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Prime Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Prime Sandboxes: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Prime Sandboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Prime Sandboxes: No limit
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Prime Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Prime Sandboxes: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Prime Sandboxes: Up to 1,024
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Prime Sandboxes: MicroVM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Prime Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Prime Sandboxes:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
Prime Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Prime Sandboxes: Python
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Prime Sandboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

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

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Prime Sandboxes
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Prime Sandboxes: $0.045
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Prime Sandboxes: $0.090
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Prime Sandboxes: $0.180
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Prime Sandboxes fits when

  • You want the lower list price: $0.090 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.
  • You need pause and resume.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

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