Which is better, Daytona or CodeSandbox?
It depends on how much of each run your agent spends computing. If it mostly waits on a model, Runtime costs least: $0.64 for the job below against $2.76 on Daytona and $2.48 on CodeSandbox, since it meters the CPU the code burns. Every sandbox is a microVM whose pause keeps memory. Pick Daytona for GPU or Windows sandboxes. Pick CodeSandbox for VMs up to 64 cores and 128 GB, or 250 VMs on one plan.
At a glance
CodeSandbox is part of Together, and its SDK rates here come from Together's documentation.
| Daytona | CodeSandbox SDK | Runtime | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Containers by default; VM sandboxes as a separate class | Firecracker microVM | Firecracker microVM, own kernel, every sandbox |
| CPU | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour | By VM size: Nano (2 cores, 4 GB) is $0.1486 an hour | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory | $0.0162 per GiB-hour | Inside the VM size | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour |
| Billing unit | Per second | Per minute, rounded up | Per second |
| Shapes | vCPUs and memory on separate meters | Fixed sizes, up to 64 cores and 128 GB | Up to 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB paid, chosen apart |
| Plan fee | None published | Build free, 10 concurrent VMs; Scale $170 a month, 250 | None; prepaid credit from $10 |
| Free start | $200 of compute | The free Build plan | 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days, no card |
| Snapshots, forks | Memory snapshots on VM sandboxes | Memory snapshot and restore | Files, memory and running processes; 1 to 100 forks |
Which is cheaper, Daytona or CodeSandbox?
For a run of exactly a minute, CodeSandbox: a Nano VM costs $0.1486 an hour, against $0.1656 on Daytona for 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB. The order turns on how long each run lasts. Daytona bills by the second. CodeSandbox rounds each VM's running time up to the next minute, so a 40-second run is billed as 60 seconds.
For 1,000 runs of 40 seconds each, same size:
| Provider | Billed time per run | Cost for 1,000 runs |
|---|---|---|
| Daytona | 40 seconds | $1.84 |
| CodeSandbox | 60 seconds | $2.48 |
Short, frequent runs favor Daytona; runs that fill whole minutes favor CodeSandbox. Neither charges less while the agent waits for a model. Runtime does: measured CPU at $0.025 a vCPU-hour with a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU, and memory at $0.0075 per GiB-hour, billed by the second.
Cost for the same job
Back to whole minutes: 1,000 runs of 60 seconds on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, a Nano VM on CodeSandbox (10 credits an hour, $0.01486 a credit), with 20 CPU-seconds of work in each run.
- CPU
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504
- $1.68
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162
- $1.08
- Size
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × $0.1486
- $2.48
- CPU
- 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025
- $0.14
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075
- $0.50
Monthly, at 100,000 runs, Daytona comes to $276.00, CodeSandbox to $247.67 and Runtime to $63.89. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute the job costs $1.33 on Runtime, $2.76 on Daytona and $2.48 on CodeSandbox. Plan fees, disk, network and free credit are not in the sums.
Is every sandbox a VM?
On CodeSandbox, yes: each VM is a Firecracker microVM. On Daytona, not by default: the standard sandbox is a container, and pausing with memory needs its separate VM class. On Runtime, every sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own Linux kernel, and there is no class to pick. MicroVM vs container covers why that boundary matters for model-written code.
Which one to pick
| Priority | Choose |
|---|---|
| Many short runs billed by the second on separate meters | Daytona |
| GPU sandboxes, Windows machines or $200 of free compute | Daytona |
| Runs that fill whole minutes on a fixed VM size | CodeSandbox |
| Very large machines (64 cores, 128 GB) or 250 concurrent VMs | CodeSandbox |
| An agent that waits on a model | Runtime |
On that last row Runtime costs over 70% below either, gives a microVM to every sandbox, allows 100 concurrent sandboxes with no plan fee, and forks copy memory and running processes.
Runtime Cloud
Runtime is 77% below Daytona and 74% below CodeSandbox on the same job. The job is 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox: $2.76 on Daytona, $2.48 on CodeSandbox, $0.64 on Runtime. Daytona meters allocated CPU and CodeSandbox sells a fixed VM, so both charge for idle cores; Runtime meters the CPU used, per second, and every sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel. Rates checked 25 October 2026.
To try it, run npx withruntime login and spend the free monthly usage on a
real job. The migration guide moves existing Daytona code
over.
Moving to Runtime
Daytona code needs only its import changed:
TypeScriptimport { Daytona } from "withruntime/daytona"; // was: from "@daytona/sdk"Pythonfrom withruntime.daytona import Daytona # was: from daytona import DaytonaCodeSandbox code is ported with the migration table, where creating, running a command, reading and writing files and shutting down each map to one call. Size is set on each sandbox rather than chosen from VM tiers:
Pythonfrom withruntime import Sandboxwith Sandbox.create() as box: box.files.write("/workspace/invoice.py", "print(sum([125, 250, 375]))\n") print(box.exec("python3 /workspace/invoice.py", check=True).stdout)npx withruntime compare --from codesandbox shows what your CodeSandbox
usage would cost here, and credit you add within 30 days of signing up is matched, up to $1,000 in total. A coding agent can make
the change from the single instruction in migration, on a
branch, tested on the free usage. Full pages:
Runtime vs Daytona,
Runtime vs CodeSandbox.
Sources
Daytona pricing page rechecked 25 October 2026; the rest checked 25 October 2026.
- Daytona pricing, Daytona sandboxes
- Together: CodeSandbox SDK, CodeSandbox SDK pricing
- Runtime pricing
Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.