# 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.

## 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:

```
Blaxel     Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.0000115                 = $2.76

Freestyle  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                                                  $2.25

Runtime    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](/docs/blaxel-alternative) and
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative).

## Sources

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

- [Blaxel pricing](https://blaxel.ai/pricing), [Blaxel sandboxes](https://docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Overview)
- [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.