CreateOS Sandbox vs AWS EC2
Pick AWS EC2 if you need full control of long-running servers, special hardware or GPUs, or you plan to build your own sandbox platform on raw VMs. Pick CreateOS Sandbox if you want that platform already built: micro-VMs per task with pause, fork, outbound allowlists and opt-in HTTPS URLs behind one API. EC2 has far more sizes; CreateOS stops at 8 vCPU / 16 GB.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. AWS EC2 pricing as published on 17 October 2026. Rates billed per GB rather than per GiB, or as bundled sizes, are quoted as published rather than converted.
CreateOS Sandbox
- Compute
- $0.0362 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- $0.0116 /GiB-hr
AWS EC2
EC2 prices whole instance types per second with a 60-second minimum per start; US East Linux on-demand examples run from $0.0084 per hour (t4g.micro) through $0.1008 per hour (m7i.large) to $55.04 per hour (p5.48xlarge), as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where AWS EC2 has the edge.
Per-second billing with no minimum, where every EC2 start carries a 60-second minimum.
Fork a paused sandbox, memory included, into independent copies; EC2 copies come from AMIs and EBS snapshots.
Isolation, egress rules and teardown come with the sandbox, so you do not harden AMIs, security groups and cleanup yourself.
Images with Python, Node.js, Go, Rust, Docker and five coding-agent CLIs ready, or a desktop with Chrome and a computer-use API.
Where AWS EC2 is strong
The widest choice of instance types on the market, from $0.0084 per hour Arm micro instances to 896-vCPU, 32 TiB memory machines and H100-class GPU instances, with per-second billing and a mature API.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You want a sandbox API today instead of building one on EC2
- Agent tasks are short and a 60-second minimum per start adds up
- You want hostname-based outbound rules applied live without a restart
Pick AWS EC2 if
- You need instance types beyond 8 vCPU, up to 896 vCPUs and 32,768 GiB
- You need GPUs such as P5 or G6 instances
- You are building your own sandbox fleet and want raw Nitro VMs or bare metal
Head-to-Head Comparison
Every dimension side by side, checked on 17 October 2026 against each vendor's own docs and pricing pages. "Not published" means we could not find it on the vendor's pages, not that the feature is missing.
| Dimension | CreateOS Sandbox | AWS EC2 |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Full VM (Nitro hypervisor, KVM-based) or bare metal |
| Create and destroy by API | Yes: REST API, CLI, SDKs for TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C# and Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), and an MCP server with create, exec and destroy tools | Yes: AWS CLI, SDKs, CloudFormation, CDK and Terraform; MCP not published |
| Memory snapshot (pause and resume) | Yes: pause saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | Hibernation saves RAM to the EBS root volume on supported instance types |
| Fork | Yes: fork a paused sandbox into new, independent sandboxes | No live fork published; launch copies from AMIs and EBS snapshots |
| Outbound network controls | Open with no rules; deny-by-default once any host, IP, CIDR or wildcard rule exists, enforced on the host outside the VM | Open by default: default security groups allow all outbound; internet access also needs a gateway route |
| Billing granularity | Per second while running, no minimums: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour | Per second for Linux, 60-second minimum per start; SLES per hour |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise (8 / 8 Pro, 4 / 4 Beginner, 1 / 1 Free) | u7in-32tb.224xlarge: 896 vCPUs, 32,768 GiB |
| GPU | No GPU shapes | Yes: P5, G6 and other GPU families |
Common Questions
Should I build agent sandboxes on EC2 or use CreateOS Sandbox?
Build on EC2 if you need hardware CreateOS lacks, such as GPUs or more than 8 vCPU, and have time to own AMIs, networking, isolation hardening and cleanup. Use CreateOS if you want pause, fork, egress allowlists and per-sandbox HTTPS URLs as API calls today.
Is outbound traffic open by default on both EC2 and CreateOS?
Yes on both. EC2 default security groups allow all outbound traffic, and CreateOS sandboxes are open while the rule list is empty. CreateOS switches to deny-by-default once you add any host, IP or CIDR rule, enforced on the host outside the VM.
Can EC2 hibernate an instance the way CreateOS pauses a sandbox?
On supported instance types, yes: EC2 hibernation saves RAM to the EBS root volume and restores it on start. CreateOS pause saves disk, memory and CPU registers for every sandbox, and a paused sandbox can be forked into new ones.
How much free egress does AWS EC2 include?
AWS includes 100 GB per month of data transfer out to the internet, aggregated across services and regions except China and GovCloud. CreateOS charges no egress fees and gives each sandbox a 50 GiB outbound bandwidth budget by default; recharging past that uses account credit.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.