Smol Machines vs tama

Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour and tama costs $0.0117 per vCPU-hour. Smol Machines runs microVMs. tama runs full VMs and offers GPUs.

Updated Oct 15, 2026

Smol Machines

Hosted Linux microVMs with their own kernel, for agents and untrusted code.

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

Visit site Smol Machines profile

tama

Linux VMs with GPUs, billed by the second.

Isolation: Full VM
Free tier: Not listed
Max session: Not listed

Visit site tama profile

What is different

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

Field

Smol Machines

tama

vCPU, per hour: Smol Machines: $0.05; tama: $0.0117
RAM, per GiB-hour: Smol Machines: $0.0162; tama: $0.0055
Storage: Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour; tama: No charge for snapshots or stopped machines
Billing: Smol Machines: Active CPU time only; tama: Per second
Largest sandbox: Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB; tama: 32 vCPU · 128 GiB
Isolation: Smol Machines: MicroVM; tama: Full VM
GPU: Smol Machines: No; tama:
Snapshots: Smol Machines: No; tama:
SDKs: Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust; tama: Python, TypeScript

Full comparison

18 fields, at each provider's list price

Smol Machinessmolmachines.com/pricingsmolmachines.com

tamatama.computer

Pricing

vCPU, per hour: Smol Machines: $0.05; tama: $0.0117
RAM, per GiB-hour: Smol Machines: $0.0162; tama: $0.0055
Storage: Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour; tama: No charge for snapshots or stopped machines
Free tier: Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time; tama: Not listed
Paid plan from: Smol Machines: Pay as you go; tama: Not listed
Billing: Smol Machines: Active CPU time only; tama: Per second

Limits

Max session: Smol Machines: Not listed; tama: Not listed
Idle stop: Smol Machines: Not listed; tama: Not listed
Largest sandbox: Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB; tama: 32 vCPU · 128 GiB
Concurrent sandboxes: Smol Machines: Up to 1,000; tama: Not listed

Platform

Isolation: Smol Machines: MicroVM; tama: Full VM
GPU: Smol Machines: No; tama:
Snapshots: Smol Machines: No; tama:
Pause and resume: Smol Machines:; tama:

Developer

SDKs: Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust; tama: Python, TypeScript
Integrations: Smol Machines: Not listed; tama: Not listed

Trust

License: Smol Machines: Apache-2.0; tama: Not listed
BYOC: Smol Machines: Not listed; tama: Not listed

Hourly cost

One sandbox running for one hour

Size

Smol Machines

tama

1 vCPU · 2 GiB: Smol Machines: $0.082; tama: $0.023
2 vCPU · 4 GiB: Smol Machines: $0.165; tama: $0.045
4 vCPU · 8 GiB: Smol Machines: $0.330; tama: $0.091

Compute only, at list rates.

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Which one fits

Based on the fields above

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.
Your code waits a lot: CPU is billed only while it is in use.

tama fits when

You need GPUs.
You want each sandbox to be a full VM.
You want the lower list price: $0.045 against $0.165 an hour for 2 vCPU and 4 GiB.
You need snapshots.

More comparisons

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Smol Machines

tama

What is different

Full comparison

Pricing

Limits

Platform

Developer

Trust

Hourly cost

Which one fits

Smol Machines fits when

tama fits when

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