CreateOS Sandbox vs Lightning AI
Choose Lightning AI if your agent's code runs next to GPU training or inference you already do on Lightning, and you are fine with egress rules by CIDR. Choose CreateOS Sandbox when the job is running agent code itself: outbound allowlists by hostname, pause that keeps memory, and a public URL per sandbox when you turn it on.
Lightning's security incident page says unauthorized credential access was found on 15 October 2026 and that its Studio platform (Studio, Deployments, Pipelines, Drive) stays inaccessible during the investigation; GPU cluster rental is not affected.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Lightning AI pricing as published on 26 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
Lightning AI
Lightning bills its Studio machines by the second, for example 8 CPU cores and 32 GB at $0.51 per hour, with a free tier of up to 30 credits, but lists no separate rate for Sandbox instance types, as of 26 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Lightning AI has the edge.
Outbound allowlists by hostname, IP, CIDR or wildcard, enforced on the host outside the VM; Lightning's network policy takes CIDR ranges only and is set at create time.
Pause keeps memory and CPU state as well as disk, and a paused sandbox can be forked into many copies; Lightning's snapshots capture the filesystem.
An opt-in public HTTPS URL per sandbox, where Lightning's sandbox API exposes ports but returns no public URL for them.
Where Lightning AI is strong
One platform for the whole model lifecycle: GPUs from T4 to B200 billed by the second, training and inference tooling, and sandbox SDKs in Python and JavaScript on the same account.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You need outbound rules by hostname, not only CIDR ranges
- You want pause with memory kept and forks of a paused sandbox
- You want a public URL for a sandbox port from the API
Pick Lightning AI if
- Your agent's code runs beside GPU training or serving on Lightning
- You want sandboxes in a Python or JavaScript SDK next to the rest of your Lightning workflow
Head-to-Head Comparison
Every dimension side by side, checked on 26 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 | Lightning AI |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Isolated environment with its own filesystem, network and processes (vendor-stated); technology not published |
| Pause and resume | Pause saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused | Persistent sandboxes auto-snapshot on stop and resume where they left off |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many copies | New sandboxes from a filesystem snapshot; no memory fork documented |
| Outbound network default | Open with no rules; deny-by-default once any rule exists (host, IP, CIDR, wildcard) | Open by default; deny-all or a CIDR allowlist, set at create; snapshot restores revert to open unless re-specified |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in public HTTPS URL | Ports exposed at create; no public URL returned by the API |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB (Enterprise) | cpu-16: 16 vCPU / 64 GB |
| Billing | $0.03616363/vCPU-hour, $0.01159025/GiB-hour, per second | Per second for Studio machines; no separate Sandbox rate published |
Common Questions
Does Lightning AI have a sandbox for running untrusted code?
Yes. Lightning AI Sandbox creates isolated Linux environments from a Python SDK, a JavaScript SDK or the lightning CLI, with node24, node22 or python313 runtimes and shapes from cpu-1 to cpu-16. CreateOS Sandbox offers the same job in Firecracker micro-VMs with TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust, C# and Java SDKs.
Can Lightning AI sandboxes restrict outbound traffic by domain?
Not by domain on the pages we read. Lightning's network policy is allow-all, deny-all or a CIDR allowlist, chosen at create time. CreateOS accepts hostname, IP, CIDR and wildcard rules, enforced on the host outside the VM, and once any rule exists everything else is denied.
Is Lightning AI usable after its October 2026 security incident?
Lightning's incident page says access to its Studio platform was revoked on 16 October 2026 while it investigates unauthorized credential access, and that GPU cluster rental is not affected. Check that page for current status before you move sandbox work there.
Sources
Checked 26 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.