Runtime

Blaxel vs Freestyle: standby sandboxes and hibernating VMs

Blaxel bills active memory with CPU included; Freestyle bills an allocated VM. The 2 vCPU, 4 GB benchmark costs $2.76 on Blaxel and $2.25 on Freestyle.

Runtime runs the benchmark for 77% less than Blaxel and 72% less than Freestyle. 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox with 20 CPU-seconds of work: $2.76 on Blaxel, $2.25 on Freestyle and $0.64 on Runtime.

Estimated compute cost

77% less than Blaxel72% less than Freestyle

2 vCPUs · 4 GiB · 60 s a run · 20 CPU-seconds busy

1,000

Compute only, at list rates checked 23 September 2026 and 25 September 2026 (Blaxel pricing, Freestyle pricing). Plan fees, network, taxes and free credits are left out. The worked example below shows the arithmetic.

At a glance

Blaxel Freestyle Runtime
Isolation Lightweight virtual machines Full Linux virtual machines Firecracker microVM, own kernel
Billing $0.0000115 per GB-second active, CPU included $0.04032 per vCPU-hour, $0.0129 per GiB-hour $0.025 per measured vCPU-hour, $0.0075 per GiB-hour
Idle Standby when connections close; ~25 ms resume Hibernates with memory Pause or idle pause, memory kept 1 to 365 days
Kept asleep Snapshot at $0.20 per GB-month Storage only $0.08 per GB-month
Free start Up to $200 of credit 200 vCPU-hours and 400 GiB-hours a month 100 sandbox hours, no card

Two ways to go quiet

Blaxel's standby is automatic and instant: close the connections and compute stops, resume in about 25 ms. Freestyle's hibernation is a VM-level pause that keeps memory for weeks. Runtime offers both behaviours in one sandbox: an idle pause you set with idlePauseSeconds, wake on the next request, and a retention you choose.

Cost for the same job

The benchmark, 60 seconds a run, with 4 GB of active memory on Blaxel and a 32 GiB disk on Freestyle:

TextBlaxel     Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.0000115                 = $2.76Freestyle  CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.04032           = $1.34           Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0129            = $0.86           Disk   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 32 × $0.000086         = $0.05           Total                                                  $2.25Runtime    CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025                = $0.14           Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075           = $0.50           Total                                                  $0.64

Neither rival reads CPU use, so a job busy for the whole minute is still $2.76 on Blaxel and $2.25 on Freestyle; it costs $1.33 on Runtime.

Which one to pick

  • Blaxel for huge fleets that sit idle and wake in milliseconds.
  • Freestyle for long-lived VMs with live forks.
  • Runtime for the lowest running cost and the cheapest paused storage.

See Runtime vs Blaxel and Runtime vs Freestyle.

Sources

Blaxel rates checked 23 September 2026; Freestyle rates checked 25 September 2026.

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.

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