CreateOS Sandbox vs Sprites
Pick Sprites if each agent or user needs one long-lived computer used on and off, and you want to pay only for active CPU and memory. Pick CreateOS Sandbox if you need a fixed vCPU and RAM size, or want to fork one paused sandbox, memory included, into many copies.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Sprites 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
Lower compute rate- Compute
- $0.0362 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- $0.0116 /GiB-hr
Sprites
- Compute
- $0.0385 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- See below
Sprites bill actual use at $0.0385 per CPU-hour of CPU time, $0.021875 per GB-hour of memory and $0.000683 per GB-hour of hot storage, with bandwidth not metered, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Sprites has the edge.
Choose the shape: from 1 vCPU / 1 GB up to 8 vCPU / 16 GB; Sprites have a fixed 8 vCPUs and platform-managed memory with no published RAM figure.
Fork a paused sandbox, memory and CPU state included, into many independent copies; Sprites document filesystem checkpoints without a fork.
Pause saves memory to durable storage until you resume; a Sprite drops memory once it moves from warm to cold.
Where Sprites is strong
Sprites are durable machines that cost nothing for compute while idle yet wake from warm in 100 to 500 ms with processes intact (vendor-stated), with automatic disk checkpoints, a built-in HTTPS URL that wakes the Sprite, and Connectors that keep credentials out of the machine.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You need a guaranteed RAM size.
- You fan out agents from one prepared, in-memory state.
- You want to choose between eu and us at create time.
Pick Sprites if
- Machines sit idle most of the day and you want no compute charge while they sleep.
- You want a built-in HTTPS URL that wakes the machine on request.
- You want Connectors so the machine never holds GitHub or Slack credentials.
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 | Sprites |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel, root filesystem and network identity | Dedicated microVM per Sprite (vendor-stated) |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing while paused, memory and storage still bill | Warm after about 30 s idle (memory frozen, processes intact), later cold (memory dropped); disk always persists |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies, each with its own id and IP | Not published (checkpoints restore a Sprite's filesystem) |
| 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 | Open; opt-in DNS-based allowlist; raw-IP connections blocked unless resolved from an allowed domain |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in public HTTPS URL, plus API-authenticated shell and port tunnels | HTTPS URL per Sprite, private to the org by default, switchable to public; a request wakes it |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise (Pro 8 vCPU / 8 GB, Beginner 4 / 4, Free 1 / 1) | Fixed 8 vCPUs and 100 GB storage; memory platform-managed, no published figure |
| Concurrency | Free 1, Beginner 5, Pro 20, Enterprise 30; paused sandboxes count toward the cap | Plan-based; Hero allows 100 running and 100 warm Sprites |
| Session length | No lifetime cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | No lifetime limit; pauses after about 30 s without activity |
| 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 | Actual use: $0.0385 per CPU-hour, $0.021875 per GB-hour; warm and cold not billed for compute |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | CLI, REST with OpenAPI, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Go and Elixir SDKs, remote MCP server |
Common Questions
How much memory does a Sprite get?
Fly.io does not publish a figure; Sprite memory is platform-managed and autoscaled under pressure, while CPU is fixed at 8 vCPUs and storage at 100 GB. CreateOS Sandbox shapes set memory explicitly, from 1 GB up to 16 GB on Enterprise.
Does a sleeping Sprite keep its processes?
While warm, yes: memory is frozen and processes resume intact. Once the Sprite goes cold, memory is dropped and processes restart. A paused CreateOS sandbox keeps memory and CPU state in durable storage until you resume, fork or destroy it.
Can I fork a Sprite into several copies?
Creating new Sprites from a checkpoint is not documented; checkpoints restore a Sprite's own filesystem. CreateOS Sandbox forks a paused sandbox into new sandboxes with their own id and IP, each starting from the parent's disk and memory.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.