Sailboxes vs Smol Machines

Sailboxes costs $0.015 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Sailboxes runs full VMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.

Updated

Sailboxes

Isolation
Full VM
Free tier
$5 credit every month
Max session
No limit

Smol Machines

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

What is different

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

Sailboxes
Smol Machines
vCPU, per hour
Sailboxes: $0.015
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Sailboxes: $0.008
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Sailboxes: $0.0007 per GiB-hour
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Sailboxes: $5 credit every month
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Billing
Sailboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Largest sandbox
Sailboxes: 8 vCPU · 256 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Sailboxes: Up to 5,000
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Sailboxes: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
Snapshots
Sailboxes:
Smol Machines: No
SDKs
Sailboxes: Python, TypeScript, Rust
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Sailboxes: $0.015
Smol Machines: $0.05
RAM, per GiB-hour
Sailboxes: $0.008
Smol Machines: $0.0162
Storage
Sailboxes: $0.0007 per GiB-hour
Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
Free tier
Sailboxes: $5 credit every month
Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
Paid plan from
Sailboxes: Pay as you go
Smol Machines: Pay as you go
Billing
Sailboxes: Per second
Smol Machines: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Sailboxes: No limit
Smol Machines: Not listed
Idle stop
Sailboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed
Largest sandbox
Sailboxes: 8 vCPU · 256 GiB
Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Sailboxes: Up to 5,000
Smol Machines: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Sailboxes: Full VM
Smol Machines: MicroVM
GPU
Sailboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: No
Snapshots
Sailboxes:
Smol Machines: No
Pause and resume
Sailboxes:
Smol Machines:

Developer

SDKs
Sailboxes: Python, TypeScript, Rust
Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Integrations
Sailboxes: Claude Code
Smol Machines: Not listed

Trust

License
Sailboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
BYOC
Sailboxes: Not listed
Smol Machines: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Sailboxes
Smol Machines
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Sailboxes: $0.031
Smol Machines: $0.082
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Sailboxes: $0.062
Smol Machines: $0.165
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Sailboxes: $0.124
Smol Machines: $0.330

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Sailboxes fits when

  • You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
  • You use Claude Code.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.062 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need snapshots.

Smol Machines fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
  • You want the larger free credit: $100 against $5.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

More comparisons

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