CreateOS Sandbox vs DigitalOcean
Go with DigitalOcean if you want simple, always-on VMs or GPU Droplets with predictable bills and plenty of included transfer. Go with CreateOS Sandbox if your agent creates and discards machines all day and needs to pause, fork and expose them without managing firewalls. Note that a powered-off Droplet still bills, while a paused sandbox stops vCPU billing.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. DigitalOcean 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
DigitalOcean
Basic Droplets start at $0.00595 per hour ($4 per month) for 512 MiB and 1 vCPU, billed per second since 1 January 2026 with a 60-second or $0.01 minimum and capped at the monthly price, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where DigitalOcean has the edge.
Pausing stops vCPU billing (memory and storage still bill), whereas a powered-off Droplet is billed until destroyed.
Fork a paused sandbox into many copies in one step; Droplets are created one by one from snapshots.
Outbound rules by hostname or wildcard, matched on the TLS server name, applied live without a restart.
Images with agent CLIs and Docker preinstalled, or a Chrome desktop with a computer-use API.
Where DigitalOcean is strong
Simple, predictable VM pricing with generous included transfer and cheap overage at $0.01 per GiB, now billed per second, and a clean API that many developers already know.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Machines are created and destroyed per agent task
- You want to pause overnight without paying for vCPU
- You need a desktop image with Chrome for computer-use agents
Pick DigitalOcean if
- You want an always-on VM with 500 to 11,000 GiB of included transfer
- You need GPU Droplets such as H100 or H200
- Your team already knows doctl and the DigitalOcean API
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 | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Full VM |
| 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: REST API, doctl CLI, Go (godo) and Python (pydo) clients, Terraform; up to 10 Droplets created at the same time |
| Memory snapshot (pause and resume) | Yes: pause saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | No memory snapshot; disk persists and powered-off Droplets still bill |
| Fork | Yes: fork a paused sandbox into new, independent sandboxes | No live fork published; create Droplets from 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; optional Cloud Firewalls deny what no rule permits. SMTP ports 25, 465 and 587 blocked |
| Billing granularity | Per second while running, no minimums: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour | Per second since 1 January 2026, 60-second or $0.01 minimum, capped at the monthly price |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise (8 / 8 Pro, 4 / 4 Beginner, 1 / 1 Free) | v5 up to 64 vCPU / 512 GB; GPU 8x H200 with 192 vCPU and 1,920 GiB |
| GPU | No GPU shapes | Yes: H100 and H200 on demand; B300 on spot or contract |
Common Questions
Does a powered-off DigitalOcean Droplet still cost money?
Yes. DigitalOcean's Droplet pricing docs say powered-off Droplets remain billable until destroyed. A paused CreateOS sandbox stops vCPU billing, but its memory and storage keep billing, and it still counts toward your concurrency cap until destroyed.
How much outbound transfer do Droplets include compared with CreateOS?
Droplet plans include 500 to 11,000 GiB per month, pooled across the team, with overage at $0.01 per GiB. CreateOS has no egress fees and a 50 GiB outbound budget per sandbox by default; traffic stops at the budget until you recharge with credit.
Is DigitalOcean or CreateOS better for an always-on app server?
DigitalOcean. A Basic Droplet with 1 GiB and 1 vCPU is $6 per month, while an always-on 1 vCPU / 1 GB CreateOS sandbox comes to $35.52 per month over 720 hours. CreateOS pricing favours short-lived agent runs over standing servers.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.