CreateOS Sandbox vs GitHub Copilot Cloud Sandboxes

If your team already uses GitHub Copilot and wants its agent sessions off laptops under org policy, Copilot cloud sandboxes need almost no setup. If you are running your own agent, another vendor's agent, or user code through an API, CreateOS Sandbox is the one built for that. GitHub documents no sandbox REST API or SDK.

GitHub lists Copilot cloud sandboxes as a public preview since 2 June 2026, with org access disabled by default; the Copilot cloud agent runs on GitHub Actions runners.

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Pricing at a Glance

CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. GitHub Copilot cloud 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

No egress fees, 50 GiB bandwidth budgetvCPU stops billing while paused

GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes

Compute: See below
Memory: $0.0108 /GiB-hr

GitHub lists cloud sandboxes at $0.000024 per compute second, $0.000003 per GiB-second while running and $0.005 per GiB-month for stopped-session snapshots, as of 17 October 2026.

Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better

What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes has the edge.

A public REST API, CLI, MCP server and six SDKs, while Copilot sandboxes are reached only through Copilot clients.

Egress rules you set per sandbox by host, IP or CIDR; Copilot sandbox egress defaults are not published, and the cloud agent firewall covers only the agent's Bash tool.

Fork from a paused sandbox; GitHub publishes no fork.

Published limits for concurrency, size and session length, where GitHub publishes no sandbox size, region or timeout limits.

Where GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes is strong

Zero-setup isolation tied to GitHub identity, repositories, org policy and billing, with sessions that save a snapshot on stop and resume from any device, and a default egress allowlist for the Copilot cloud agent.

Which to Pick

Pick CreateOS Sandbox if

You are building your own agent product or running agents other than Copilot.
You need an API to create, exec, pause, fork and destroy sandboxes.
You need known size, concurrency and region limits before you commit.

Pick GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes if

Your developers already use Copilot and you want agent sessions in the cloud under org policy.
You want resumable sessions without managing any infrastructure.
You want billing and access to stay inside GitHub.

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	GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes
Isolation	Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel	Isolated, ephemeral Linux environment built on Azure Container Apps Sandboxes; primitive not stated
Pause and resume	Yes: disk, memory and CPU state saved; vCPU stops billing, memory and storage still bill	Stop saves a snapshot; resume restores files, environment variables and work in progress
Fork	Yes: fork a paused sandbox into many independent sandboxes	Not published
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	Sandboxes: not published. Cloud agent: firewall with a recommended allowlist on by default
Inbound access	Closed by default; opt-in public HTTPS URL, plus API-authenticated shell and port tunnels	Not published
Largest size	8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 vCPU / 8 GB on Pro	Not published
Concurrency	1 / 5 / 20 / 30 concurrent sandboxes on Free / Beginner / Pro / Enterprise; paused sandboxes count	Parallel tasks allowed; numeric limits not published
Session length	No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default	Sandboxes: not published. Cloud agent: 59 minutes maximum
Billing	Per second while running: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr	Per second: $0.000024/compute second, $0.000003/GiB-second running; $0.005/GiB-month for stopped snapshots
SDKs and interfaces	TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST	Copilot CLI (copilot --cloud, experimental) and Copilot app; no sandbox REST API or SDK documented

Common Questions

Can I call GitHub Copilot cloud sandboxes from my own code?

Not through a documented API. GitHub documents access through the Copilot CLI, which is experimental for cloud use, and the Copilot app, with no sandbox REST API or SDK. CreateOS sandboxes are created and driven over REST, the CLI, an MCP server or SDKs in six languages.

How long can a Copilot cloud agent session run?

59 minutes, and GitHub says it cannot be extended, since timeout-minutes tops out at 59. Limits for the cloud sandboxes themselves are not published. A CreateOS sandbox has no session cap and runs until you destroy or pause it.

Is the Copilot cloud sandbox preview free?

GitHub gave a $10 monthly entitlement during the public preview through the end of July 2026, and says all usage is billed after the preview. CreateOS has a Free plan with 500 credits, one concurrent sandbox and no card required.

Sources

Checked 17 October 2026.

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