CreateOS Sandbox vs Datalayer
Datalayer is the stronger choice when your agent or analyst needs a stateful Jupyter kernel, possibly on a GPU. CreateOS Sandbox is the stronger choice when you need a full Linux environment with a documented isolation boundary, outbound rules and published per-second rates.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Datalayer 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
Datalayer
Pricing not published in readable form: Datalayer sells prepaid credits that runtimes consume while active, and its pricing page could not be read as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Datalayer has the edge.
A full Linux micro-VM per sandbox; Datalayer does not state its isolation boundary.
Public per-second rates per vCPU-hour and GiB-hour that you can budget against.
No 24-hour runtime ceiling; Datalayer runtimes are set from 1 to 1440 minutes.
Where Datalayer is strong
Datalayer offers real Jupyter kernels with rich display output for agents, plus the widely used open-source Jupyter MCP Server, so an agent can drive a stateful notebook on cloud CPU or GPU. Its clients, VS Code extension and code-sandboxes package are open source.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You need a whole Linux machine with a shell, not only a kernel.
- You must document isolation and outbound controls for review.
Pick Datalayer if
- Your agent works in notebooks and needs rich Jupyter output.
- You need GPU runtimes for data work.
- You want to move a notebook session between laptop and cloud.
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 | Datalayer |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Not published (CLI addresses runtimes by pod name) |
| What persists | Disk stays until you destroy the sandbox; pause also saves memory and CPU state | Runtime snapshots can be created and restored |
| Create by API | Yes: REST API, six SDKs (TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java), CLI and MCP server | Python and TypeScript clients, datalayer CLI, Jupyter MCP Server, VS Code extension |
| Outbound network | 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 |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 / 8 on Pro, 4 / 4 on Beginner, 1 / 1 on Free | Not published |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour | Prepaid credits consumed while runtimes are active; rates not readable |
| Self-host | Enterprise only, onboarded by our team | Many components open source (BSD-3, MIT); full platform self-host not published |
| Built for | Sandboxes created by API for agent and untrusted code | Notebooks and agent-driven data analysis on remote CPU or GPU kernels |
Common Questions
How long can a Datalayer runtime stay up?
Datalayer's VS Code extension sets runtime lifetime from 1 to 1440 minutes, which is 24 hours. A CreateOS sandbox has no lifetime cap and runs until you destroy it, pause it, or it auto-pauses after an idle window you configure.
Does Datalayer support GPUs?
Yes, Datalayer offers GPU runtime environments, though the GPU types are not published on the pages read. CreateOS Sandbox has no GPU shapes, so it is the wrong pick for GPU notebooks.
Can the Datalayer code-sandboxes package drive other providers?
Yes. Datalayer's open-source code-sandboxes package can run code on Datalayer runtimes and also drives E2B, Modal, Daytona, CoreWeave and Cloudflare, per its docs. CreateOS is not in that list; you would call it through its own SDKs or REST API.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.