CreateOS Sandbox vs Shardflux
Pick Shardflux if you run long-lived coding agents and want a VM that parks with memory between tool calls and wakes in about 0.1 s (vendor-stated), on a monthly plan with GPU hours on higher tiers. Pick CreateOS Sandbox if you need an EU region, published compliance certifications, or SDKs in Go, Rust, C# or Java.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Shardflux 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
Shardflux
- Compute
- See below
- Memory
- $0.0150 /GiB-hr
Shardflux sells monthly plans from $0 (15 CPU-hours) to $299 (6,000 CPU-hours, 48,000 RAM GiB-hours, 100 GPU-hours), with capped overage at $0.04 per CPU-hour, $0.015 per RAM GiB-hour and $1.00 per GPU-hour, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Shardflux has the edge.
Two regions, eu and us; Shardflux runs in AWS us-west-2 only.
Shardflux publishes a DPA but no certifications. CreateOS is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified, with reports available under NDA.
SDKs for Go, Rust, C# and Java (pre-1.0) as well as TypeScript and Python.
A documented outbound default: open until you add a rule, then deny-by-default. Shardflux does not state its default.
Where Shardflux is strong
Shardflux workspaces park seconds after the last call with files, processes and memory kept, cost almost nothing while idle, and wake in about 0.1 s (vendor-stated) with dev servers still running. Forks carry memory, and Claude Code, Codex and Claude Desktop integration is built in.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your users are in Europe.
- Your buyers ask for SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.
- You write agents in Go, Rust, C# or Java.
Pick Shardflux if
- You want a monthly plan with CPU-hours and RAM-hours included.
- You need GPU hours for rendering or CUDA on the Startup or Scale plans.
- You need up to 32 vCPU / 64 GiB on Scale.
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 | Shardflux |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Firecracker micro-VM with its own kernel per workspace |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops, memory and storage still bill | Parks seconds after the last call with memory kept; can suspend to durable storage |
| Fork | Forks a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Fork running or suspended workspaces with memory |
| 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 | Default not stated; per-project allow list |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in HTTPS URL | Private HTTPS URL per port; every port private until shared (vendor-stated) |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 vCPU / 8 GB on Pro | 8 vCPU / 16 GiB on Pro and Startup; 32 vCPU / 64 GiB on Scale |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan (Free to Enterprise); paused sandboxes count | 3 Free, 10 Developer and Pro, 50 Startup, 200 Scale |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, $0.0001584/GB-hr storage; no egress fees, 50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox | Monthly plans $0 to $299 with included CPU-hours and RAM GiB-hours; overage $0.04/CPU-hour, $0.015/RAM GiB-hour |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | TypeScript and Python SDKs, shard CLI, hosted and local MCP server, HTTP API |
| GPU | No GPU | Startup and Scale: Vulkan rendering, CUDA Driver API, NVENC; GPU model not published |
Common Questions
How does Shardflux pricing work?
Shardflux sells monthly plans with included usage, from Free with 15 CPU-hours to Scale at $299 with 6,000 CPU-hours and 48,000 RAM GiB-hours. Overage is opt-in and capped, at $0.04 per CPU-hour and $0.015 per RAM GiB-hour. CPU-hours count CPU time used, not allocated vCPUs.
Which region does Shardflux run in?
AWS us-west-2 in Oregon only. CreateOS Sandbox runs in two managed regions, eu and us, selected at create time. If your agents serve users in Europe or must keep data there, that difference decides the choice.
Do Shardflux forks include memory like CreateOS forks?
Yes, and Shardflux can fork a running workspace as well as a suspended one, keeping template version, secrets and egress policy. CreateOS Sandbox forks only from a paused sandbox; each child gets its own id, IP and bandwidth ledger and can take new egress rules.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.