Shardflux vs Smol Machines
Shardflux costs $0.04 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Shardflux runs Firecracker microVMs and offers GPUs. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
Shardflux
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
- Max session
- Not listed
Smol Machines
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $100 credit, one time
- Max session
- Not listed
What is different
11 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Shardflux
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- Shardflux: $0.04
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Shardflux: $0.015
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Shardflux: $9 / month
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Largest sandbox
- Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Shardflux: Up to 200
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Isolation
- Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Shardflux:
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Shardflux:
- Smol Machines: No
- SDKs
- Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Shardfluxshardflux
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Shardflux: $0.04
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Shardflux: $0.015
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Shardflux: Retained storage is a monthly allowance per plan. No hourly storage rate is published.
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Shardflux: 30-day Pro trial, no card needed
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Shardflux: $9 / month
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Shardflux: Active CPU time only
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Shardflux: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Shardflux: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Shardflux: 32 vCPU · 64 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Shardflux: Up to 200
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Shardflux: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Shardflux:
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Shardflux:
- Smol Machines: No
- Pause and resume
- Shardflux:
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- Shardflux: TypeScript, Python
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Integrations
- Shardflux: Claude Code, MCP
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Trust
- License
- Shardflux: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- Shardflux: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Shardflux
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Shardflux: $0.070
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Shardflux: $0.140
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Shardflux: $0.280
- Smol Machines: $0.330
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Shardflux fits when
- You need GPUs.
- You use Claude Code or MCP.
- You want the lower list price: $0.140 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
- You need snapshots.
Smol Machines fits when
- You want to pay only for usage, with no plan fee.
- You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
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