Which is better, Daytona or Freestyle?
It depends on what your agent does between model calls. While it waits, Runtime bills only the CPU the code uses, so this job costs $0.64 there against $2.25 on Freestyle and $2.76 on Daytona. Its sandboxes fork and pause with memory kept. Pick Freestyle for one VM with 32 vCPUs on its Pro plan. Pick Daytona for GPUs, Windows sandboxes or an EU region.
At a glance
Freestyle's VM rates are about a fifth below Daytona's, so the 2 vCPU, 4 GiB benchmark is $2.25 on Freestyle against $2.76 on Daytona.
| Daytona | Freestyle | Runtime | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Containers by default; VM sandboxes as a separate class | Full Linux virtual machines | Firecracker microVM, own kernel, every sandbox |
| CPU | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory | $0.0162 per GiB-hour | $0.0129 per GiB-hour | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour |
| Disk | First 5 GiB free, then $0.000108 per GiB-hour | $0.000086 per GiB-hour of the allocation | Included while it runs |
| Plan | None published | Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month | None; prepaid credit from $10 |
| Free start | $200 of compute | 200 vCPU-hours and 400 GiB-hours a month | 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days, no card |
| Idle | Stops after 15 idle minutes by default | Pauses with memory; storage billed meanwhile | Pause keeps memory while you have credit |
Free tiers compared
Daytona gives $200 of compute once. Freestyle's free plan renews 200 vCPU-hours and 400 GiB-hours every month, but caps you at 10 concurrent VMs and 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB each; more takes Hobby at $50 or Pro at $500 a month. Runtime includes 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days with no card, and a paid account then runs 100 concurrent sandboxes with no plan at all.
Cost for the same job
1,000 runs of 60 seconds, 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, 20 CPU-seconds each; Freestyle's default 32 GiB disk counted, Daytona's first 5 GiB free:
- CPU
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504
- $1.68
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162
- $1.08
- 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
- CPU
- 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025
- $0.14
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075
- $0.50
Across 100,000 runs a month: $276.00 on Daytona, $224.99 on Freestyle, $63.89 on Runtime. Kept busy for the whole minute, the totals read $2.76 on Daytona, $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.33 on Runtime.
Which one to pick
- Daytona for GPUs, Windows sandboxes, an EU region, or $200 of free compute.
- Freestyle for VMs that fork while running, or 32 vCPUs in one VM on Pro.
- Runtime for the lowest bill of the three, a microVM for every sandbox,
and Daytona code that runs through
withruntime/daytonaafter changing one import.
Compare further with Runtime vs Daytona and Runtime vs Freestyle.
Runtime Cloud
Runtime costs 77% less than Daytona and 72% less than Freestyle. One thousand runs of a minute on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, each with 20 CPU-seconds of work, cost $2.76 on Daytona, $2.25 on Freestyle and $0.64 on Runtime. Daytona and Freestyle charge for every core a sandbox holds; Runtime charges for the work the cores do.
You can check this on your own workload for free: npx withruntime login
opens an account with monthly usage included. Moving a Daytona project takes
the steps in the migration guide.
Sources
Daytona rates checked 25 October 2026; Freestyle rates checked 25 October 2026.
- Daytona pricing, Daytona sandboxes
- Freestyle pricing, Freestyle VM pricing and limits
- Runtime pricing
Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.