CreateOS Sandbox vs Vercel Sandbox
Pick Vercel Sandbox if your app already deploys on Vercel and you want active-CPU billing, high concurrency and 19 regions under one account. Pick CreateOS Sandbox if you need sessions longer than 24 hours, a pause that documents keeping memory and processes, or no per-GB egress fee.
Pricing at a glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Vercel Sandbox 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
- No egress fees, 50 GiB bandwidth budget
- vCPU stops billing while paused
Vercel Sandbox
Vercel Sandbox charges $0.128 per active CPU hour, $0.0212 per GB-hour of provisioned memory, $0.60 per million creations and $0.15 per GB of data transfer (iad1 rates), as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox fits better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Vercel Sandbox has the edge.
- No per-session cap. Vercel sessions stop at 45 minutes on Hobby and 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise.
- Pause is documented to save memory and CPU registers as well as disk; Vercel documents automatic filesystem snapshots and does not state memory capture.
- No per-GB egress fee, with a 50 GiB outbound budget per sandbox; Vercel charges $0.15 per GB sent out.
- Official SDKs for Go, Rust, C# and Java (pre-1.0) besides TypeScript and Python.
Where Vercel Sandbox is strong
Vercel bills CPU on active time, so an agent waiting on a model pays for memory but not idle CPU. Sandboxes persist and fork by default, run in 19 regions, and live in the same platform that hosts your app.
Which to pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- A single agent session runs past 24 hours.
- Each sandbox sends less than 50 GiB out and you want no per-GB charge on it.
- You want pause to keep running processes in memory.
Pick Vercel Sandbox if
- Your app is on Vercel and you want one vendor with OIDC auth.
- You need thousands of concurrent sandboxes; Pro allows 10,000.
- You need a region close to your users among Vercel's 19.
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 | Vercel Sandbox |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Firecracker micro-VM with a dedicated kernel |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops, memory and storage still bill | Filesystem snapshotted automatically when a session stops; next session resumes from it; memory capture not stated |
| Fork | Forks a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Yes: fork new sandboxes from another sandbox's current state |
| 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; deny-all, or deny-by-default policies with domain and CIDR allows, updated at runtime |
| Inbound access | Closed by default; opt-in HTTPS URL | Exposed ports reachable at a public URL; up to 15 ports |
| Largest size | 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Enterprise; 8 vCPU / 8 GB on Pro | 4 vCPU / 8 GB Hobby; 8 vCPU / 16 GB Pro; 32 vCPU / 64 GB Enterprise |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan (Free to Enterprise); paused sandboxes count | 10 on Hobby; 10,000 on Pro and Enterprise |
| Session length | No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | 45 minutes on Hobby, 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise, per session |
| 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 | Active CPU $0.128/hour, memory $0.0212/GB-hour, $0.60 per 1M creations, data transfer $0.15/GB |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | TypeScript and Python SDKs, sandbox CLI; SDK source Apache-2.0 |
Common questions
What is the session limit on Vercel Sandbox versus CreateOS?
Vercel Sandbox sessions last up to 45 minutes on Hobby and 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise; the limit resets when a persistent sandbox stops and resumes. CreateOS Sandbox has no session cap, so one session can run for days until you pause or destroy it.
How does Vercel Sandbox active-CPU billing compare with CreateOS per-second billing?
Vercel charges $0.128 per active CPU hour plus $0.0212 per GB-hour of provisioned memory, so idle CPU is free. CreateOS charges $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour per second while running. The rates are not directly comparable, and agents that sit idle often favour Vercel's model.
Does Vercel Sandbox charge for egress?
Yes. Vercel charges $0.15 per GB for data sent out and for all exposed-port traffic, while downloads into the sandbox are free. CreateOS Sandbox has no per-GB egress fee; each sandbox has a 50 GiB outbound budget by default, and recharging beyond it uses account credit.
Can I fork a Vercel Sandbox the way I fork a CreateOS sandbox?
Yes, both fork. Vercel forks from another sandbox's current state through the SDK or CLI. CreateOS forks from a paused sandbox and gives each copy its own id, IP and egress settings, while the source stays paused.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.