Runtime vs Shellbox
Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour and Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit.
Updated
Runtime
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Max session
- No limit
Shellbox
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
What is different
8 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Runtime
Shellbox
- vCPU, per hour
- Runtime: $0.025
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Billing
- Runtime: Active CPU time only
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
- Idle stop
- Runtime: After 5 minutes
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Runtime: Up to 200
- Shellbox: Up to 16
- Integrations
- Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Runtimewithruntime
Shellboxshellbox
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Runtime: $0.025
- Shellbox: $0.01
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Shellbox: Included
- Storage
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Free tier
- Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Paid plan from
- Runtime: Pay as you go
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Runtime: Active CPU time only
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Limits
- Max session
- Runtime: No limit
- Shellbox: No limit
- Idle stop
- Runtime: After 5 minutes
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Runtime: Up to 200
- Shellbox: Up to 16
Platform
- Isolation
- Runtime: Firecracker microVM
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- GPU
- Runtime: No
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Snapshots
- Runtime:
- Shellbox:
- Pause and resume
- Runtime:
- Shellbox:
Developer
- SDKs
- Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Integrations
- Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code
- Shellbox: Claude Code
Trust
- License
- Runtime: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
- BYOC
- Runtime: Not listed
- Shellbox: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Runtime
Shellbox
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Runtime: $0.040
- Shellbox: $0.010
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Runtime: $0.080
- Shellbox: $0.020
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Runtime: $0.160
- Shellbox: $0.040
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Runtime fits when
- You use the OpenAI Agents SDK, the Vercel AI SDK, the Claude Agent SDK, LangChain or MCP.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
- Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
- You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.
Shellbox fits when
- You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.080 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
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