Smol Machines vs Upstash Box
Smol Machines costs $0.05 per vCPU-hour and Upstash Box costs $0.10 per vCPU-hour. Smol Machines runs microVMs. Upstash Box runs containers.
Updated
Smol Machines
- Isolation
- MicroVM
- Free tier
- $100 credit, one time
- Max session
- Not listed
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.
Smol Machines
Upstash Box
- vCPU, per hour
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- Upstash Box: $0.10
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Upstash Box: Included
- Storage
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Upstash Box: $0.10 per GB per month, including snapshots. Included on Fixed.
- Free tier
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Upstash Box: Free plan, 5 CPU hours per month
- Largest sandbox
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Upstash Box: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Isolation
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- Upstash Box: Container
- Snapshots
- Smol Machines: No
- Upstash Box:
- SDKs
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Upstash Box: Python, TypeScript
Full comparison
18 fields, at each provider's list price
Smol Machinessmolmachines
Upstash Boxupstash
Pricing
- vCPU, per hour
- Smol Machines: $0.05
- Upstash Box: $0.10
- RAM, per GiB-hour
- Smol Machines: $0.0162
- Upstash Box: Included
- Storage
- Smol Machines: $0.0001 per GiB-hour
- Upstash Box: $0.10 per GB per month, including snapshots. Included on Fixed.
- Free tier
- Smol Machines: $100 credit, one time
- Upstash Box: Free plan, 5 CPU hours per month
- Paid plan from
- Smol Machines: Pay as you go
- Upstash Box: Pay as you go
- Billing
- Smol Machines: Active CPU time only
- Upstash Box: Active CPU time only
Limits
- Max session
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Upstash Box: Not listed
- Idle stop
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Upstash Box: After 360 minutes
- Largest sandbox
- Smol Machines: 32 vCPU · 32 GiB
- Upstash Box: 8 vCPU · 16 GiB
- Concurrent sandboxes
- Smol Machines: Up to 1,000
- Upstash Box: Up to 1,000
Platform
- Isolation
- Smol Machines: MicroVM
- Upstash Box: Container
- GPU
- Smol Machines: No
- Upstash Box: Not listed
- Snapshots
- Smol Machines: No
- Upstash Box:
- Pause and resume
- Smol Machines:
- Upstash Box:
Developer
- SDKs
- Smol Machines: TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Upstash Box: Python, TypeScript
- Integrations
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Upstash Box: LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Code, MCP
Trust
- License
- Smol Machines: Apache-2.0
- Upstash Box: Not listed
- BYOC
- Smol Machines: Not listed
- Upstash Box: Not listed
Hourly cost
One sandbox running for one hour
Smol Machines
Upstash Box
- 1 vCPU · 2 GiB
- Smol Machines: $0.082
- Upstash Box: $0.100
- 2 vCPU · 4 GiB
- Smol Machines: $0.165
- Upstash Box: $0.200
- 4 vCPU · 8 GiB
- Smol Machines: $0.330
- Upstash Box: $0.400
Compute only, at list rates.
Open the calculatorWhich 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.
- You want the lower list price: $0.165 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, Claude Code or MCP.
- You need snapshots.
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