Shellbox vs Upstash Box

Shellbox costs $0.01 per vCPU-hour and Upstash Box costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour. Shellbox runs Firecracker microVMs and has no session limit. Upstash Box runs containers.

Updated

Shellbox

Isolation
Firecracker microVM
Free tier
Not listed
Max session
No limit

Upstash Box

Isolation
Container
Free tier
Free plan, 5 CPU hours per month
Max session
Not listed

What is different

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

Shellbox
Upstash Box
vCPU, per hour
Shellbox: $0.01
Upstash Box: $0.10
Storage
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Upstash Box: $0.10 per GB per month, including snapshots. Included on Fixed.
Billing
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Upstash Box: Active CPU time only
Idle stop
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Upstash Box: After 360 minutes
Largest sandbox
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Upstash Box: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Shellbox: Up to 16
Upstash Box: Up to 1,000
Isolation
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
Upstash Box: Container
Integrations
Shellbox: Claude Code
Upstash Box: LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Code, MCP

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Pricing

vCPU, per hour
Shellbox: $0.01
Upstash Box: $0.10
RAM, per GiB-hour
Shellbox: Included
Upstash Box: Included
Storage
Shellbox: A stopped box costs $0.50 per x1 slot per month
Upstash Box: $0.10 per GB per month, including snapshots. Included on Fixed.
Free tier
Shellbox: Not listed
Upstash Box: Free plan, 5 CPU hours per month
Paid plan from
Shellbox: Pay as you go
Upstash Box: Pay as you go
Billing
Shellbox: Bundled machine time
Upstash Box: Active CPU time only

Limits

Max session
Shellbox: No limit
Upstash Box: Not listed
Idle stop
Shellbox: After 2 minutes
Upstash Box: After 360 minutes
Largest sandbox
Shellbox: 16 vCPU · 32 GiB
Upstash Box: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes
Shellbox: Up to 16
Upstash Box: Up to 1,000

Platform

Isolation
Shellbox: Firecracker microVM
Upstash Box: Container
GPU
Shellbox: Not listed
Upstash Box: Not listed
Snapshots
Shellbox:
Upstash Box:
Pause and resume
Shellbox:
Upstash Box:

Developer

SDKs
Shellbox: Not listed
Upstash Box: Python, TypeScript
Integrations
Shellbox: Claude Code
Upstash Box: LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Code, MCP

Trust

License
Shellbox: Not listed
Upstash Box: Not listed
BYOC
Shellbox: Not listed
Upstash Box: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Shellbox
Upstash Box
1 vCPU · 2 GiB
Shellbox: $0.010
Upstash Box: $0.100
2 vCPU · 4 GiB
Shellbox: $0.020
Upstash Box: $0.200
4 vCPU · 8 GiB
Shellbox: $0.040
Upstash Box: $0.400

Compute only, at list rates.

Open the calculator

Which one fits

Based on the fields above

Shellbox fits when

  • You want each sandbox in its own microVM.
  • You want the lower list price: $0.020 against $0.200 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
  • You need a sandbox larger than 8 vCPU · 16 GiB.

Upstash Box fits when

  • You use LangChain, the Vercel AI SDK or MCP.
  • Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.
  • You need GDPR.

More comparisons

See all comparisons

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