CreateOS Sandbox vs Unikraft Cloud
Unikraft Cloud is a strong choice for platforms that give every user or request its own VM and need many mostly idle instances that wake quickly, with on-prem and BYOC on Enterprise. CreateOS Sandbox is the choice when you want published per-second rates, documented egress rules and a ready agent toolchain rather than a platform for Dockerfile workloads.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Unikraft Cloud 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
Unikraft Cloud
Unikraft Cloud plans are Hobby $0/month (2 running instances), Team $39/month (8 running, 8 vCPU, 8 GiB) and Pro $199/month (24 running, 24 vCPU, 32 GiB); per-unit overage rates are not published, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Unikraft Cloud has the edge.
Published per-second rates for vCPU, memory and storage; Unikraft publishes plan caps but not per-unit rates.
Outbound allowlist rules enforced on the host; Unikraft does not publish an egress default or controls.
The devbox:1 image ships Python, Node.js, Go, Rust, Docker and five coding agents ready to run.
Official SDKs for Rust, C# and Java as well as TypeScript, Go and Python.
Where Unikraft Cloud is strong
Vendor-stated millisecond cold starts and scale-to-zero with state kept, at high density per server, make it practical to give every user or request its own VM.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You want metered per-second pricing rather than a monthly plan with pooled vCPU totals.
- Agent code runs behind a strict outbound allowlist.
- You want a sandbox with coding agents preinstalled.
Pick Unikraft Cloud if
- You need thousands of standby VMs that resume quickly (vendor-stated under 10 ms).
- You want to fork a live VM or migrate it between servers.
- You need five metros or an on-prem 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 | Unikraft Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Micro-VM on KVM |
| Pause and resume | Pause saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU stops billing, memory and storage still bill | Stateful scale-to-zero; checkpoints; live migration between servers |
| Fork | Yes, fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Yes, fork a live VM (vendor-stated about 10 ms) |
| 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 | Not published |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in public HTTPS URL | Public FQDN with mandatory TLS; private network; tunnels; custom domains |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 vCPU / 8 GB on Pro | Pro totals 24 vCPU and 32 GiB across instances; per-instance maximum not published |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan; paused sandboxes count toward the cap | Running: Hobby 2, Team 8, Pro 24; standby 5 / 50 / 5,000 |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour; no egress fees, 50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox | Monthly plans from $0 to $199; overage rates not published |
| Self-host or BYOC | Enterprise only, onboarded by our team | Dedicated hosted, on-prem and BYOC on Enterprise |
| GPU | No GPU shapes | Enterprise preview |
Common Questions
Is Unikraft Cloud the same as the Unikraft unikernel project?
No. Unikraft Cloud at unikraft.com is a commercial cloud that runs Dockerfile workloads as minimal Linux microVMs; the open-source unikernel project lives at unikraft.org. CreateOS Sandbox runs Firecracker micro-VMs from its own images or Dockerfile templates.
Can Unikraft Cloud fork a running VM?
Yes. Unikraft states it can fork a live VM in about 10 ms, children included. CreateOS Sandbox forks only from a paused sandbox, creating independent copies while the source stays paused and untouched.
Which regions does Unikraft Cloud run in?
Unikraft Cloud runs in five metros: Dallas, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Singapore and Washington DC, and offers on-prem and BYOC on Enterprise. CreateOS Sandbox runs in two managed regions, eu and us, chosen at create time.
Does Unikraft Cloud publish per-hour rates?
No. It publishes monthly plans with caps on running instances, vCPU and memory, but not per-unit overage rates. CreateOS Sandbox lists $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, billed per second, as of 17 October 2026.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.