CreateOS Sandbox vs Lizard
Lizard is hard to beat on price and on shipping what the agent builds: a 2 vCPU / 4 GB sandbox costs $0.0162 per hour, and the app can deploy with Postgres or Redis on the same platform. Pick CreateOS Sandbox when every run must sit in its own micro-VM kernel, when you need egress allowlists, or when you want shell access over SSH. Lizard says a sandbox can fall back to a container that shares the host kernel.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Lizard 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
Lizard
Lizard charges flat hourly rates per size, billed per second while running: Small (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 5 GB disk) $0.0162/h, Medium (4 vCPU / 8 GB / 20 GB) $0.0324/h, Large (8 vCPU / 16 GB / 50 GB) $0.0648/h, with egress included up to 2 TB per account per 30 days; Pro is $19/month, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Lizard has the edge.
Each sandbox is a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel. Lizard documents cases where a sandbox runs in a Kubernetes container sharing the host kernel.
Egress rules by host, IP, CIDR or wildcard, enforced outside the VM; Lizard's sandbox pages document no egress controls.
API-authenticated shell and port-forward tunnels plus an SSH gateway; Lizard offers no SSH or port forwarding.
SDK coverage past TypeScript and Python: Go, Rust, C# and Java clients, all pre-1.0.
Where Lizard is strong
Lizard publishes a very low price for a 2 vCPU / 4 GB sandbox, forks running sandboxes with memory and processes, and lets the agent's output deploy as a running app with managed Postgres or Redis on the same platform.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your threat model needs a separate kernel for every run.
- You must restrict outbound destinations.
- You want SSH or port tunnels into the sandbox.
Pick Lizard if
- You want the cheapest 2 vCPU / 4 GB sandbox in this comparison.
- You want the agent to deploy its app and database on the same platform.
- You need to fork a running sandbox without pausing it.
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 | Lizard |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Firecracker microVM by default; can fall back to a Kubernetes container sharing the host kernel |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops while paused, memory and storage still bill | Pause and resume, snapshot and restore; pause stops compute charges |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Copies a running sandbox with memory and processes; not with a volume attached |
| 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; egress included up to 2 TB per account per 30 days |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in HTTPS URL | Private HTTPS preview URL per port, needs the sandbox access token; no SSH or port forwarding |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 / 8 on Pro, 4 / 4 on Beginner, 1 / 1 on Free | Large: 8 vCPU / 16 GB / 50 GB disk |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan (Free to Enterprise); paused sandboxes count | Pro 100 running, 24 starts per minute; trial 5 |
| Session length | No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | Fixed deadline: SDK/CLI default 5 minutes, API default none; 0 disables |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour; no egress fees (50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox) | Flat per size, per second: $0.0162/h Small to $0.0648/h Large |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | TypeScript and Python SDKs, Lizard CLI, agent skill |
Common Questions
When does a Lizard sandbox run in a container instead of a VM?
Lizard's docs list older pod snapshots or volumes, account or region settings, and some Firecracker start failures; check getInfo().runtime to see which you got. A CreateOS sandbox is a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel, root filesystem and network identity.
How does Lizard's price compare with CreateOS for 2 vCPU / 4 GB?
Lizard's Small size, 2 vCPU / 4 GB with a 5 GB disk, is $0.0162 per hour. At CreateOS list rates the same vCPU and memory cost about $0.119 per hour before storage. If hourly price decides it, Lizard wins clearly.
Do Lizard sandboxes expire?
Yes, by deadline rather than idle time. The SDK and CLI default to 5 minutes, the raw API and dashboard default to no expiry, and timeoutMs: 0 disables it. CreateOS has no lifetime cap; idle auto-pause is optional and off by default.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.