CreateOS Sandbox vs Ona
Existing Ona Enterprise customers who need governed environments inside their own AWS or GCP account can keep using it. Teams looking for a self-serve place to run agent code today can sign up for CreateOS Sandbox on a Free plan, since Ona has closed new Core subscriptions.
Ona, formerly Gitpod, says its acquisition by OpenAI closed on 10 August 2026, and new self-serve Core subscriptions are no longer available.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Ona 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
Ona
Ona Core bills in Ona Compute Units, 1 OCU per hour for 4 vCPU / 16 GB and 7 OCUs per hour for the 16 vCPU / 64 GB GPU class, with no OCU dollar price published and Enterprise via sales, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Ona has the edge.
Self-serve sign-up with a Free plan; Ona has closed new Core subscriptions.
Published per-second dollar rates per vCPU-hour and GiB-hour; Ona's OCU price is not published.
Pause with memory state and fork from a paused sandbox; Ona documents neither.
Where Ona is strong
Ona brings deep enterprise governance to agent execution: environments run inside the customer's own AWS or GCP VPC, are reproducible from Dev Container config, and are policed by Veto, a kernel-level Linux Security Module the agent cannot switch off. It also offers GPU classes.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You need to sign up and run agent code today without a sales process.
- You want per-second pricing you can read on a public page.
Pick Ona if
- You are an existing Ona Enterprise customer with runners in your own cloud account.
- You need GPU-backed development environments.
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 | Ona |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Full VM per environment (EC2 or Compute Engine on BYOC runners); Veto enforces executable policy in the kernel |
| What persists | Disk stays until you destroy the sandbox; pause also saves memory and CPU state | Storage persists across stop and start; prebuilds snapshot Dev Container setup; no memory snapshot documented |
| Create by API | Yes: REST API, six SDKs (TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java), CLI and MCP server | Public API, ona CLI and Terraform provider |
| Outbound network | 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; Enterprise runners use your VPC network controls |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 / 8 on Pro, 4 / 4 on Beginner, 1 / 1 on Free | Ona Cloud 16 vCPU / 64 GB GPU class; AWS runners any x64 EBS instance type you configure |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour | Ona Compute Units per hour (dollar price not published); new Core subscriptions closed |
| Self-host | Enterprise only, onboarded by our team | BYOC runners in your own AWS or GCP account; not open source |
Common Questions
Can I still sign up for Ona?
Ona's billing docs say new Core subscriptions are no longer available after the OpenAI acquisition, and point new users to OpenAI Codex; the site still offers a contact-sales route. CreateOS Sandbox has a self-serve Free plan with 1 concurrent sandbox and no card required.
Does Ona run in my own cloud account?
Yes. Ona runners deploy into your own AWS account through CloudFormation or your GCP account through Terraform. CreateOS self-hosting and bring-your-own-cloud are for enterprise customers only and are onboarded by our team rather than installed by you.
What does Ona cost per hour?
Ona prices Core usage in Ona Compute Units, one per hour for a 4 vCPU / 16 GB environment and seven for the GPU class, but the OCU dollar price is not on the pages read. CreateOS publishes $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, billed per second.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.