CreateOS Sandbox vs Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF)
Tencent Cloud SCF is the cheaper, simpler fit for event handlers, APIs and scheduled jobs that finish inside 900 seconds, especially for users in mainland China and Asia. CreateOS Sandbox is the fit for interactive agent work: a shell, a durable filesystem, no time limit, and the option to pause or fork mid-task. Functions are stateless by design; sandboxes are not.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF) 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
Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF)
Tencent Cloud lists resource usage at 0.0000167 USD/GBs and invocations at 0.002 USD per 10,000, billed on actual execution time, with public outbound traffic from 0.0752 USD/GB, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF) has the edge.
No execution timeout; SCF stops each execution at 900 seconds at most.
The filesystem persists for the sandbox's life and through pause, while SCF's 512 MB /tmp lasts only while an instance stays warm.
Outbound limited to a list of hosts, IPs or CIDR ranges; SCF documents a public network switch and VPC isolation but no per-host allowlist.
Where Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF) is strong
Very low per-invocation cost with a generous three-month free tier, function sizes up to 120 GB and 64 cores, and T4 and A10 GPU functions, all inside Tencent Cloud's China and Asia-Pacific footprint.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- An agent needs a long-running shell session with files that stay put.
- You want to pause a task and resume it later with memory intact.
- You want to fork a prepared environment into parallel attempts.
Pick Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF) if
- Your code is event-driven: timers, COS events, message queues or HTTP calls that finish within 15 minutes.
- You serve users in mainland China or Asia and already run on Tencent Cloud.
- You need GPU functions on T4 or A10.
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 | Tencent Cloud Serverless Cloud Function (SCF) |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Not published; per-function instances described as containers |
| Create and destroy by API | Yes: REST API, CLI, MCP server and SDKs for TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C# and Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0) | Functions deployed via Tencent Cloud API 3.0, SDKs or console; instances started by triggers, not created per run |
| Memory snapshot (pause and resume) | Yes: disk, memory and CPU state saved; vCPU stops billing, memory and storage still bill | No; stateless, /tmp kept only while an instance is warm |
| Fork | Yes: fork a paused sandbox into many independent sandboxes | No |
| Outbound network controls | Open with no rules; deny-by-default once any host, IP, CIDR or wildcard rule exists, enforced on the host outside the VM | Per-function public network setting; VPC functions isolated from the internet by default; optional fixed outbound IP; no per-host allowlist documented |
| Billing granularity | Per second while running: $0.03616363/vCPU-hr, $0.01159025/GiB-hr, storage $0.0001584/GB-hr | Per request plus GB-second on actual execution time, settled hourly |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 vCPU / 8 GB on Pro | 120 GB memory and 64 vCPU cores per function |
| GPU | None; no GPU shapes | Yes: T4 and A10 GPU functions, with limited elasticity |
Common Questions
What is the maximum run time of a Tencent Cloud SCF function?
900 seconds. SCF execution timeouts are configurable from 1 to 900 seconds, with sync payloads up to 6 MB and async events up to 128 KB. A CreateOS sandbox has no lifetime cap and keeps running until you destroy it, pause it or it auto-pauses.
Does Tencent SCF have a free tier?
Yes. For the first three months SCF includes 1M event-triggered and 1M HTTP-triggered invocations, 1,000,000 GBs and 2 GB outbound per month, then a basic package at 0.06 USD a day. CreateOS's Free plan gives 500 credits and one concurrent sandbox with no card required.
Can Tencent SCF restrict which hosts my code calls?
Tencent documents a per-function public network switch, VPC placement that blocks the internet by default and an optional fixed outbound IP, but no per-host allowlist. CreateOS lets you list allowed hosts, IPs or CIDR ranges, and everything else is then blocked on the host.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
- Tencent Cloud SCF: unit prices, egress prices
- Tencent Cloud SCF: billing method and granularity
- Tencent Cloud SCF: free tier
- Tencent Cloud SCF: quota limits, timeout, payloads, regions
- Tencent Cloud SCF: max memory/cores, GPU
- Tencent Cloud SCF: concurrency
- Tencent Cloud SCF: instance lifecycle, /tmp, cold start
- Tencent Cloud SCF: fixed public outbound IP
- Tencent Cloud SCF: VPC isolation from public network
- Tencent Cloud SCF: runtimes, image functions
- Tencent Cloud SCF: compliance
- Tencent Cloud SCF: compliance (SOC)
- CreateOS Sandbox limits
- CreateOS egress rules
- CreateOS Sandbox pricing
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.