CreateOS Sandbox vs Replicate
Replicate is the fast route to calling image, video, audio and language models through one API without hosting them. CreateOS Sandbox is for something else: executing arbitrary agent-written code in a Linux micro-VM with a shell, files and network rules. Replicate runs packaged predictions with a 30-minute limit and deletes outputs after an hour.
Replicate's blog announced that Replicate is joining Cloudflare in a post dated 17 November 2025; the product still runs under the Replicate brand with its own pricing.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Replicate 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
Replicate
Replicate lists H100 at $0.001525 per second ($5.49/hr), A100 80GB at $0.001400 per second and cpu-small at $0.000025 per second ($0.09/hr), as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Replicate has the edge.
General shells and long-lived sessions; Replicate predictions time out after 30 minutes and offer no interactive environment.
Files persist for the sandbox's life, while Replicate deletes API prediction inputs, outputs and logs after 1 hour by default.
Egress rules you control; Replicate does not publish its outbound network behaviour.
Where Replicate is strong
A large catalogue of ready-to-call models behind one API with per-second billing, so you can use image, video and language models without packaging or hosting them, plus Cog, an open-source packaging tool.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your agent writes code that needs to run somewhere isolated.
- Sessions last longer than 30 minutes or need files to stay.
- You want to pause, resume and fork environments.
Pick Replicate if
- You want to call hosted models from an app through an API.
- You want to publish a custom model packaged with Cog.
- You need 8x H100 or H200 for a model deployment.
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 | Replicate |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Running agent and untrusted code in isolated, disposable Linux sandboxes | Running packaged ML models through an API |
| GPU | None; no GPU shapes | Yes: H200, H100, A100 80GB, L40S, T4; up to 8 per instance |
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Container (Cog/Docker); technology not published |
| Billing | Per second while running: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr | Per second of hardware for most public models; some per output; private models billed for all online time |
| Pause and resume | Yes: disk, memory and CPU state saved; vCPU stops billing, memory and storage still bill | Not applicable; predictions are stateless and data is deleted after 1 hour |
| 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 |
| 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) | HTTP API, Python, JavaScript, Go and Swift clients, Cog CLI |
Common Questions
Can Replicate execute code that my agent generates?
Not as a general shell. Replicate runs packaged model predictions with a 30-minute run limit and no direct container access. CreateOS runs agent-written code in a Firecracker micro-VM you can exec into, push files to and keep running as long as you need.
How long does Replicate keep prediction data?
One hour by default. Replicate deletes inputs, outputs, files and logs of API predictions after an hour, while model images persist as versions. A CreateOS sandbox keeps its disk until you destroy it, including while it is paused.
Is Replicate owned by Cloudflare?
Replicate's blog published a post titled Replicate is joining Cloudflare, dated 17 November 2025. The service still runs under the Replicate brand with its own pricing and docs as of 17 October 2026.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
- Replicate: hardware pricing, billing model
- Replicate: Cloudflare acquisition post
- Replicate: product overview
- Replicate: timeouts, statuses
- Replicate: data retention
- Replicate: deployments, scaling
- Replicate: Cog, client libraries
- Replicate: Cog license (Apache-2.0)
- CreateOS Sandbox pricing
- CreateOS Sandbox limits
- CreateOS egress rules
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.