Sandbox as a Service vs Smol Machines
Sandbox as a Service costs $0.045 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Sandbox as a Service runs full VMs and limits a session to 24 hours. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
Sandbox as a Service
- Isolation
- Full VM
- Free tier
- $5 credit
- Max session
- 24 hours
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.
Sandbox as a Service
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Sandbox as a Service: Included
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Free tier
- Sandbox as a Service: $5 credit
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Billing
- Sandbox as a Service: Bundled machine time
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
- Largest sandbox
- Sandbox as a Service: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Sandbox as a Service: Up to 20
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Isolation
- Sandbox as a Service: Full VM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- Snapshots
- Sandbox as a Service:
- Smol Machines: No
- SDKs
- Sandbox as a Service: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Sandbox as a Servicesandbox-as-a-service
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Sandbox as a Service: Included
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Sandbox as a Service: $5 credit
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Sandbox as a Service: Pay as you go
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Sandbox as a Service: Bundled machine time
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Sandbox as a Service: 24 hours
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Sandbox as a Service: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Sandbox as a Service: Up to 20
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Sandbox as a Service: Full VM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Sandbox as a Service:
- Smol Machines: No
- Pause and resume
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- Sandbox as a Service: Python, JavaScript / TypeScript
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Integrations
- Sandbox as a Service: MCP
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Trust
- License
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- Sandbox as a Service: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Sandbox as a Service
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.045
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.090
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Sandbox as a Service: $0.180
- Smol Machines: $0.330
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Sandbox as a Service fits when
- You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
- You use MCP.
- 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 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.
- You need pause and resume.
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