CreateOS Sandbox vs Paperspace
Paperspace suits individuals and small ML teams who want notebooks or a persistent GPU VM, including free notebook tiers. CreateOS Sandbox suits programs that need isolated CPU environments per task, created by API and billed per second. Paperspace bills hourly, and some of its actions are console-only.
Paperspace is now part of DigitalOcean; its documentation and pricing are published on docs.digitalocean.com.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Paperspace 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
Paperspace
DigitalOcean's Paperspace pricing docs list on-demand machines at $5.95/hr for an H100 and $3.09/hr for an A100, with CPU machines from $0.0045/hr (C1), billed hourly; Paperspace's own pricing page labels some of these differently, so the docs figures are used, as of 26 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Paperspace has the edge.
Create, exec, pause, fork and destroy are all in the REST API, while Paperspace says some actions are console-only.
Billing by the second rather than by the hour.
Fork from a paused sandbox with memory, where Paperspace custom templates copy a full disk image only.
Where Paperspace is strong
Simple hosted Jupyter notebooks with free and low-cost GPU tiers, plus full GPU desktops and VMs with free, unlimited bandwidth.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your code creates environments automatically, many times a day.
- You need egress rules on each environment.
- You want pause and fork with memory for agent sessions.
Pick Paperspace if
- You want a Jupyter notebook on a GPU, with a free tier to start.
- You want a persistent GPU VM up to 8x H100.
- You want free, unlimited bandwidth.
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 | Paperspace |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Running agent and untrusted code in isolated, disposable Linux sandboxes | ML development in notebooks and GPU VMs |
| GPU | None; no GPU shapes | Yes: H100, A100, A100-80G, V100, A6000, A5000, A4000 and more; H100 requires approval |
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Machines: full VM. Deployments: containers |
| Billing | Per second while running: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr | Hourly; storage and IPs have monthly caps |
| Pause and resume | Yes: disk, memory and CPU state saved; vCPU stops billing, memory and storage still bill | Power off stops compute; storage, IPs and add-ons keep billing; no memory snapshot published |
| 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 | Policy not published; free unlimited bandwidth (sustained 1 Gbps+ limited to 200 Mbps) |
| Create by API | Yes: REST API, CLI, MCP server and SDKs for TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C# and Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0) | Core REST API, JavaScript SDK, Gradient and pspace CLIs; some actions console-only |
Common Questions
Who owns Paperspace now?
DigitalOcean. Paperspace's pricing page and DigitalOcean's docs describe Paperspace as part of DigitalOcean, and its legacy APIs were deprecated in May 2024. The product still offers GPU Machines, Gradient notebooks and Deployments.
Do I need approval to use H100s on Paperspace?
Yes. DigitalOcean's Paperspace limits page says H100 access requires approval, which takes one to two business days. CreateOS has no GPUs; its sandboxes are CPU micro-VMs, starting with the Free plan.
How is Paperspace billed when a machine is powered off?
Powering off stops compute charges, but storage, public IPs and add-ons keep billing hourly until the machine is destroyed. A paused CreateOS sandbox works in a similar way: vCPU stops billing, while memory and storage keep billing per second.
Sources
Checked 26 October 2026.
- Paperspace: DigitalOcean ownership, plan prices, CPU prices
- Paperspace: billing granularity, off-state billing, GPU prices, storage, free tier
- Paperspace: products, APIs, deprecations
- Paperspace: limits, approvals, bandwidth, snapshots
- Paperspace: auto-shutdown, templates, IPs
- Paperspace: regions
- CreateOS Sandbox pricing
- CreateOS pause, resume and fork
- CreateOS egress rules
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.