Runtime vs Smol Machines
Runtime costs $0.025 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Runtime runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
Runtime
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Max session
- No limit
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.
Runtime
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- Runtime: $0.025
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Largest sandbox
- Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Runtime: Up to 200
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Isolation
- Runtime: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- SDKs
- Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
- Integrations
- Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code
- Smol Machines: MCP
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Runtimewithruntime
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Runtime: $0.025
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Runtime: $0.0075
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Runtime: $0.000119 per GiB-hour after 10 free GiB
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Runtime: 100 hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Runtime: Pay as you go
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Runtime: Active CPU time only
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Runtime: No limit
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Runtime: After 5 minutes
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Runtime: 16 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Runtime: Up to 200
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Runtime: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Runtime: No
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Runtime:
- Smol Machines:
- Pause and resume
- Runtime:
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- Runtime: JavaScript / TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
- Integrations
- Runtime: OpenAI Agents SDK, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, LangChain, MCP, Claude Code
- Smol Machines: MCP
Trust
- License
- Runtime: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- Runtime: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Runtime
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Runtime: $0.040
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Runtime: $0.080
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Runtime: $0.160
- Smol Machines: $0.330
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 Claude Code.
- You want the lower list price: $0.080 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
- You need a desktop in the sandbox.
Smol Machines fits when
- You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
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