CreateOS Sandbox vs Beam
If your agents or RL environments need a GPU, or you already serve inference on Beam, its sandboxes are the better fit: a GPU attaches with one parameter. For CPU agent code that should run behind a micro-VM boundary, CreateOS Sandbox costs less, $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour against Beam's $0.0675. Beam describes each sandbox as a container.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Beam 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
Lower compute rate- Compute
- $0.0362 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- $0.0116 /GiB-hr
Beam
- Compute
- $0.0675 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- $0.0230 /GiB-hr
Beam charges sandboxes $0.0000375 per second per physical core (2 vCPU) and $0.0000064 per second per GiB of RAM, with storage up to 1 TB included; Developer is $20/month with $20 credits and Team $89/month plus usage, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Beam has the edge.
A Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel, where Beam runs a container you control.
Roughly half Beam's CPU and memory rates: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour against $0.0675 and $0.02304.
No default lifetime timer: a sandbox runs until you pause or destroy it. Beam sandboxes end after 600 seconds unless you change the TTL.
Native SDKs for Go, Rust, C# and Java beside TypeScript and Python, with all but TypeScript at pre-1.0.
Where Beam is strong
Beam attaches GPUs to a sandbox with one parameter, from T4 to B200, serves inference endpoints, task queues and VMs from the same account, offers memory snapshots for forking, and its engine, Beta9, is open source and self-hostable. It also holds SOC 2 Type II (vendor-stated).
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You run untrusted CPU code and want a micro-VM boundary by default.
- You want lower per-vCPU and per-GiB rates for CPU sandboxes.
- You would rather not manage a lifetime timer for each sandbox.
Pick Beam if
- Agents or RL environments need GPUs.
- You already run inference or task queues on Beam.
- You want to self-host the open-source Beta9 engine on Kubernetes.
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 | Beam |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Container; runtime not named |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops while paused, memory and storage still bill | Lifetime-based (TTL); memory snapshots on supported runtimes |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Restore new sandboxes from filesystem images or memory snapshots |
| Outbound network default | 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; block all, or allow up to 64 hosts, IPs or CIDRs |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in HTTPS URL | Public SSL URLs per exposed port, no built-in auth |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan (Free to Enterprise); paused sandboxes count | CPU: Developer 30, Team 1,000, Growth unlimited |
| Session length | No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | TTL default 600 s; -1 for no automatic end |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour; no egress fees (50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox) | $0.0675 per vCPU-hour, $0.02304 per GiB-hour, billed by the millisecond |
| Self-host or BYOC | Enterprise only, onboarded by our team | Open-source Beta9 on Kubernetes; BYOC on AWS, GCP, Azure |
| GPU | No GPU | Yes: T4, A10G, RTX 4090/5090, H100, H200, B200 |
Common Questions
Are Beam sandboxes containers or VMs?
Containers. Beam's docs describe a sandbox as a container you control and do not name the runtime. CreateOS runs each sandbox as a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel, root filesystem and network identity.
Can I use a GPU in a CreateOS sandbox the way I can in Beam?
No. CreateOS has no GPU shapes. Beam sandboxes accept gpu, gpu_count or pool parameters, with GPU types on the platform from T4 up to B200, so GPU agents belong on Beam.
Are Beam's sandbox URLs protected?
No. Beam's docs say exposed URLs are public with no built-in auth. CreateOS keeps inbound access closed by default and opens an HTTPS URL only when you enable ingress for that sandbox.
How long does a Beam sandbox run?
600 seconds by default, set by keep_warm_seconds, extendable with update_ttl(), or indefinitely with -1. A CreateOS sandbox has no lifetime cap and runs until you pause or destroy it, with idle auto-pause off unless you set it.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.