CreateOS Sandbox vs Render
Choose Render to run your production web app, workers and Postgres in one managed place. Choose CreateOS Sandbox for the code your agent generates: a per-task micro-VM you can pause, fork and lock down with egress rules, then destroy. The two do different jobs and can sit side by side.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Render 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
Render
Render charges a workspace plan (Hobby $0, Pro $25/month, Scale $499/month) plus compute from $7/month for 0.5 CPU/512 MB to $1,500/month for 12 CPU/96 GB, prorated to the second; bandwidth past the included amount is $0.15/GB, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Render has the edge.
Files survive: a sandbox keeps its filesystem until you destroy it, while Render discards local filesystem changes on redeploy.
Pause and fork a live environment, which Render does not publish for running instances.
Outbound allowlists by host, IP or CIDR, enforced outside the VM. Render does not publish an egress default.
No egress fees, against Render's $0.15/GB once included bandwidth runs out (each sandbox has a 50 GiB budget by default).
Where Render is strong
A complete managed stack in one place: web services, background workers, cron jobs, managed Postgres with point-in-time recovery and preview environments, with compute prorated to the second.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your agent needs a disposable machine per task, not a deployed service
- You want to pause a session and resume it later with memory intact
- You want to restrict outbound traffic to a list of hosts
Pick Render if
- You run a production web app with a database and want no servers to manage
- You need preview environments per pull request
- You need service machines up to 12 CPU / 96 GB
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 | Render |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | API-created sandboxes for agent-written and untrusted code | Production web services, workers, cron jobs, Postgres and Key Value |
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Not published |
| Ephemeral per-run environments | Yes. Create a sandbox per task by API, SDK, CLI or MCP and destroy it after | Not the model; services are deployed and long-running. Preview environments per pull request |
| Pause and resume | Yes. Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | Not published; Free services spin down after 15 minutes idle and take about one minute to spin back up (vendor-stated) |
| Outbound network | Open with no rules; deny-by-default once any rule exists (host, IP, CIDR, wildcard), enforced on the host outside the VM | Not published; outbound bandwidth metered, inbound IP rules on Scale |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr; no egress fees (50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox by default) | Monthly workspace plan plus compute prorated to the second |
| Run untrusted code | Yes, the core use case; each sandbox is its own micro-VM | Not published as a use case |
Common Questions
Does a Render service keep files written at run time?
Not across redeploys. Render discards local filesystem changes on redeploy, and Free services also lose them on spin-down; persistent disks cost $0.25/GB per month. A CreateOS sandbox keeps its filesystem until you destroy it, including through pause and resume.
What is Render Workflows, and is it priced like a sandbox?
Render Workflows is a separate durable-execution product, priced at $0.20 per active CPU hour and $0.05 per active GB hour for tasks up to 1 CPU, with sub-second task spin-up (vendor-stated). Render does not publish its isolation boundary, so check that before running untrusted code there.
Where does Render run, compared with CreateOS?
Render lists Oregon, Ohio and Virginia in the USA, plus Frankfurt and Singapore. CreateOS Sandbox has two managed regions, eu and us, set with the region field when a sandbox is created.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.