CreateOS Sandbox vs Machine0
Pick machine0 for long, compute-heavy or GPU agent jobs on a persistent VM: sizes reach 60 vCPU / 240 GB or 8x H200, in five regions. Pick CreateOS Sandbox for high-volume agent code execution, where you want exec and file SDKs, pause that keeps memory, and forks from a saved snapshot. machine0 suspends to a disk image and bills stopped VMs at full rate.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. machine0 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
machine0
machine0 charges per minute from a prepaid wallet: CPU VMs from $0.013/hour (1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB disk) to $3.714/hour (60 vCPU, 240 GB, 900 GB), GPU VMs from $0.836/hour (1x H100 $4.851/h), and $0.078 per GB-month for suspended images, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where machine0 has the edge.
Pause keeps memory and CPU state and stops vCPU billing. machine0 bills stopped VMs at full rate, and its documented suspend saves the disk only.
Fork a paused sandbox, memory included, into many copies; machine0 clones from golden images, with no live fork.
Exec and file operations from SDKs in six languages plus REST; machine0 offers a CLI and an MCP server.
Inbound stays closed until you open an HTTPS URL; machine0 VMs start with ports 22, 80 and 443 open in ufw.
Where machine0 is strong
machine0 rents far larger machines than typical agent sandboxes, up to 60 vCPU / 240 GB or 8x H200 GPUs, as persistent VMs with static IPs in five regions, and its profiles inject Claude Code, Codex and GitHub credentials and MCP servers into each VM.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You run many short agent tasks and need exec and file APIs.
- You want paused agents to resume with processes intact.
- You want new sandboxes closed to inbound traffic by default.
Pick machine0 if
- You need GPUs or more than 8 vCPU / 16 GB.
- You want a persistent VM per agent with a dedicated public IPv4.
- You need regions in the UK or Asia.
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 | machine0 |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Full VM on KVM/QEMU, on DigitalOcean infrastructure |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops while paused, memory and storage still bill | Suspend saves the disk to an image and deletes the instance; memory not documented; stopped VMs bill full rate |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies | No live fork; clones from golden images or snapshots |
| 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 (ufw on; outbound rules not documented) |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in HTTPS URL | Public IPv4 per VM, HTTPS endpoint authenticated to the owner, SSH key only |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 / 8 on Pro, 4 / 4 on Beginner, 1 / 1 on Free | CPU 60 vCPU / 240 GB / 900 GB; GPU up to 8x H200 |
| Session length | No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | No limit; runs until stopped, suspended or removed |
| 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) | Per minute, from $0.013/hour (1 vCPU, 1 GB) to $3.714/hour (60 vCPU) |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | CLI with --json, remote MCP server, agent skills |
| GPU | No GPU | Yes: H100, H200, L40S, MI300X, RTX 4000/6000 Ada; up to 8 per VM |
Common Questions
Does machine0 keep memory when a VM is suspended?
Its docs describe suspend as a disk snapshot to an image, with the cloud instance deleted and a new IP on resume; memory preservation is not documented. CreateOS pause saves disk, memory and CPU state and resumes the same sandbox.
Is a small machine0 VM cheaper than a CreateOS sandbox?
Yes. machine0's small VM, 1 vCPU / 1 GB with a 25 GB disk, is $0.013 per hour. A 1 vCPU / 1 GB CreateOS sandbox is about $0.048 per hour before storage, at $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour.
Which regions does machine0 offer?
Five: US East (New York), US West (San Francisco), UK (London), EU (Amsterdam) and Asia (Singapore), at the same price in all of them. CreateOS offers two managed regions, eu and us, chosen when you create a sandbox.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.