Shellbox vs Smol Machines
Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour and Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit. Smol Machines runs microVMs.
Updated
Shellbox
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM
- Free tier
- Not listed
- Max session
- No limit
Smol Machines
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $100 credit, one time
- Max session
- Not listed
What is different
8 fields differ. The rest are the same or not listed.
Shellbox
Smol Machines
- vCPU, per hour
- Shellbox: $0.01
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: Included
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Billing
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
- Largest sandbox
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Shellbox: Up to 16
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Isolation
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- Integrations
- Shellbox: Claude Code
- Smol Machines: MCP
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Shellboxshellbox
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Shellbox: $0.01
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Shellbox: Included
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Storage
- Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Free tier
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Paid plan from
- Shellbox: Pay as you go
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Shellbox: Bundled machine time
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Shellbox: No limit
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Shellbox: After 2 minutes
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Largest sandbox
- Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Shellbox: Up to 16
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- GPU
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Smol Machines: No
- Snapshots
- Shellbox:
- Smol Machines:
- Pause and resume
- Shellbox:
- Smol Machines:
Developer
- SDKs
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go
- Integrations
- Shellbox: Claude Code
- Smol Machines: MCP
Trust
- License
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- BYOC
- Shellbox: Not listed
- Smol Machines: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Shellbox
Smol Machines
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Shellbox: $0.010
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Shellbox: $0.020
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Shellbox: $0.040
- Smol Machines: $0.330
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich one fits
Based on the fields above
Shellbox fits when
- You use Claude Code.
- You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
Smol Machines fits when
- You want an open-source platform (Apache-2.0) that you can self-host.
- You use MCP.
- Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
- You need a sandbox larger than 16 vCPU · 32 GiB.
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