# Cloudflare Sandbox vs Freestyle: what survives idle time

A Cloudflare sandbox loses its files when it sleeps; a Freestyle VM hibernates with its memory. The benchmark costs $1.35 on Cloudflare and $2.25 on Freestyle.

**Runtime costs 53% less than Cloudflare and 72% less than Freestyle, and keeps
memory across a pause.** 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox
with 20 CPU-seconds of work each: $1.35 on Cloudflare Sandbox (6 GiB, its
minimum for two vCPUs), $2.25 on Freestyle and $0.64 on Runtime.

## At a glance

|           | Cloudflare Sandbox                                       | Freestyle                              | Runtime                                                  |
| --------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | A container in its own VM                                | Full Linux virtual machines            | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| CPU       | $0.072 per active vCPU-hour                              | $0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour       | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory    | $0.009 per provisioned GiB-hour, 3 GiB per vCPU at least | $0.0129 per GiB-hour                   | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                            |
| Idle      | Sleeps after 10 idle minutes; files lost unless in R2    | Hibernates with memory; storage billed | Pause keeps files, memory and processes, 1 to 365 days   |
| Largest   | 4 vCPUs, 12 GiB, 20 GB                                   | 32 vCPUs and 64 GiB on Pro             | 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid                                |
| Plan      | Workers Paid, from $5 a month                            | Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month      | None; prepaid credit from $10                            |

## Idle time decides it

An agent that stops to wait for a person, or comes back tomorrow, needs its
state to survive. Cloudflare's sandbox sleeps after ten quiet minutes and
starts clean unless you copied files to R2. Freestyle keeps the whole VM,
memory included, and bills storage meanwhile. Runtime does the same with
paused storage at $0.08 per GB-month for up to a year.

## Cost for the same job

The benchmark, 60 seconds a run (6 GiB and a 12 GB disk on Cloudflare, a
32 GiB disk on Freestyle):

```
Cloudflare  CPU    1,000 × 20 s × $0.000020                     = $0.40
            Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 6 × $0.0000025                = $0.90
            Disk   1,000 × 60 s × 12 × $0.00000007              = $0.05
            Total                                                  $1.35

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
```

With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, the job costs $3.35 on Cloudflare, $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.33 on Runtime.

## Which one to pick

- **Cloudflare Sandbox** for short jobs launched from Workers, near users.
- **Freestyle** for long-lived VMs of up to 32 vCPUs.
- **Runtime** for the lowest bill with state that survives any gap.

See [Runtime vs Cloudflare Sandbox](/docs/cloudflare-sandbox-alternative) and
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative).

## Sources

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

- [Cloudflare Containers pricing](https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/pricing/), [Containers limits and instance types](https://developers.cloudflare.com/containers/platform/limits/)
- [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.