CreateOS Sandbox vs Buddy Sandboxes
Pick Buddy Sandboxes if you already run Buddy pipelines and want a sandbox per PR that you expose on an authenticated endpoint and deploy from the same tool. Pick CreateOS Sandbox if you run untrusted agent code and need the isolation technology and egress rules written down, or want memory kept across pause and fork.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Buddy Sandboxes 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
Buddy Sandboxes
- Compute
- $0.0144 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- See below
Buddy includes sandbox CPU-minutes and GB-hours in plans from EUR 0 to EUR 99 per month, then charges $0.00024 per CPU-minute and $0.00011 per GB-hour, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Buddy Sandboxes has the edge.
Documented isolation: a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel; Buddy does not name its isolation technology.
Outbound allowlists by host, IP or CIDR, enforced on the host; Buddy does not publish an egress default.
Pause and fork keep memory and processes; Buddy keeps the disk on stop and restarts apps, and copies disk only.
Where Buddy Sandboxes is strong
Buddy wires sandboxes into a full delivery stack: create one per PR from a pipeline, expose it on an authenticated or IP-restricted endpoint, then deploy with the same tool, on a persistent Ubuntu box with sudo, Docker and Claude Code ready.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your security review needs the isolation boundary and egress policy documented.
- Agents need to resume with memory intact.
- You need disk sizes other than a fixed 50 GB.
Pick Buddy Sandboxes if
- Your team already uses Buddy CI/CD.
- You want PR preview environments with IP whitelists or password-protected URLs.
- You need up to 12 CPU / 24 GB per machine.
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 | Buddy Sandboxes |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel, root filesystem and network identity | Not published (an isolated machine with its own OS, filesystem, processes and network) |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | 50 GB disk persists across stop and restart; memory and processes do not |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies, each with its own id and IP | Copy a sandbox or create from a snapshot, disk included; no memory fork |
| 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 | Not published |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in public HTTPS URL, plus API-authenticated shell and port tunnels | Public HTTP, TCP or TLS endpoints with IP/CIDR whitelists and auth; SSH and web terminal |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise (Pro 8 vCPU / 8 GB, Beginner 4 / 4, Free 1 / 1) | 12 CPU / 24 GB RAM; disk fixed at 50 GB |
| Session length | No lifetime cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | No timeout by default; optional inactivity timeout; wakes on traffic |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr; no egress fees, 50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox | Plan allowance, then $0.00024 per CPU-minute and $0.00011 per GB-hour |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | TypeScript SDK (pre-1.0), CLI, REST with OpenAPI, YAML, pipeline actions, MCP server |
Common Questions
What isolation technology do Buddy Sandboxes use?
Buddy does not name it; its docs describe an isolated machine with its own operating system, filesystem, processes and network that behaves like a VM. CreateOS Sandbox documents a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel per sandbox.
Does a Buddy sandbox keep running processes when stopped?
No. The 50 GB disk persists, but memory and processes do not, and apps restart on start. A CreateOS Sandbox pause keeps disk, memory and CPU state, so processes are still there after resume.
Can Buddy Sandboxes run from a CI pipeline?
Yes, that is Buddy's main fit: pipelines can create a sandbox per branch or PR, expose it on an endpoint and deploy with the same tool. CreateOS Sandbox is driven from its CLI, SDKs, MCP or REST API, which you would call from your own CI.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.