Runloop vs Shellbox
Runloop costs $0.108 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Runloop runs microVMs. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.
Updated
Shellbox
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
What is different
7 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Runloop
Shellbox
- vCPU, per hour
- Runloop: $0.108
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runloop: $0.0252
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Runloop: $0.00034236 per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Billing
- Runloop: Per second
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
- Largest sandbox
- Runloop: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Isolation
- Runloop: MicroVM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- Integrations
- Runloop: OpenAI Agents SDK, MCP, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Runlooprunloop
Shellboxshellbox
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Runloop: $0.108
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runloop: $0.0252
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Runloop: $0.00034236 per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Free tier
- Runloop: $50 credit
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Paid plan from
- Runloop: Pay as you go
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Runloop: Per second
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Limits
- Max session
- Runloop: Not listed
- Shellbox: No limit
- Idle stop
- Runloop: Not listed
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Runloop: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Runloop: Not listed
- Shellbox: Up to 16
Platform
- Isolation
- Runloop: MicroVM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- Runloop: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Snapshots
- Runloop:
- Shellbox:
- Pause and resume
- Runloop:
- Shellbox:
Developer
- SDKs
- Runloop: Python, TypeScript
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Integrations
- Runloop: OpenAI Agents SDK, MCP, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Trust
- License
- Runloop: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- BYOC
- Runloop: Deploy to VPC, Enterprise plan
- Shellbox: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Runloop
Shellbox
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Runloop: $0.158
- Shellbox: $0.010
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Runloop: $0.317
- Shellbox: $0.020
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Runloop: $0.634
- Shellbox: $0.040
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Runloop fits when
- You use the OpenAI Agents SDK or MCP.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
- You need the sandboxes in your own cloud account.
- You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.
Shellbox fits when
- You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.317 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
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