CreateOS Sandbox vs Specific
Specific is built for coding agents that ship whole apps: one specific.hcl file defines services, Postgres, storage and workflows, and Specific deploys them. CreateOS Sandbox is built for the step before that, where the agent needs a private Linux machine to run, test and discard code. Pick Specific for where the finished app lives; pick CreateOS for where the agent works.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Specific 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
Specific
Specific plans are Free $0, Pro $25/month and Scale $299/month with matching usage included; services cost $0.009/hour (0.25 vCPU/512 MB) to $0.62/hour (8 vCPU/32 GB), and service egress is $0.09/GB, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Specific has the edge.
Two regions, eu and us, against Specific's single Frankfurt region today.
Documented isolation and egress rules for untrusted code; Specific publishes neither.
The devbox:1 image puts five coding agents on PATH (OpenCode, Claude Code, Pi, Cursor CLI, Codex), ready for the agent's working session.
No egress fees, where Specific charges $0.09/GB for service egress.
Where Specific is strong
Made for agents that ship whole apps. One config file covers services, Postgres, storage and workflows, previews branch data copy-on-write, and actions that affect production stay with humans in the dashboard.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- Your agent must run untrusted code in isolation before anything is deployed
- You want to pause an agent's machine and fork it into parallel attempts
- You need a us region today
Pick Specific if
- Your agent builds and deploys a complete web app with a database
- You want preview environments with copy-on-write data branching
- You want production changes gated behind a human
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 | Specific |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | API-created sandboxes for agent-written and untrusted code | Coding agents provisioning and deploying full-stack apps from a specific.hcl file |
| 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 | Preview environments per pull request; services are long-running |
| Pause and resume | Yes. Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | Not published |
| 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 |
| 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) | Hourly per service size plus a monthly plan with included credit |
| Run untrusted code | Yes, the core use case; each sandbox is its own micro-VM | Not published as a use case |
Common Questions
Can a coding agent deploy to Specific without a human?
Partly. Specific lets agents define infrastructure in specific.hcl and deploy with its CLI, while it keeps production-impacting actions for humans in the dashboard. CreateOS Sandbox gives the agent a machine to work in; deploying the finished app is a separate step.
Does Specific support bring-your-own-cloud?
On Enterprise, Specific lists bring-your-own-cloud or on-prem, and an open-source local dev version as coming soon. CreateOS offers self-hosting and BYOC to Enterprise customers only, onboarded by its team.
How does egress pricing differ between Specific and CreateOS?
Specific charges $0.09/GB for service egress and $0.10/GB for Postgres, with object storage egress free. CreateOS has no egress fees; each sandbox gets a 50 GiB outbound bandwidth budget by default, and recharging past it uses account credit.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.