# Daytona vs Vercel Sandbox: pricing, isolation and limits Daytona defaults to containers and bills allocated CPU; Vercel uses Firecracker microVMs and bills active CPU, cheaper for agents that wait. **Runtime costs 77% less than Daytona and 70% less than Vercel on the same job.** Run a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox 1,000 times for a minute each and the bill is $2.76 on Daytona, $2.12 on Vercel and $0.64 on Runtime. Runtime meters CPU by use, as Vercel does, but its CPU rate is about a fifth of Vercel's, and it puts every sandbox in its own Firecracker microVM, which Daytona does only on request. Rates checked 23 September 2026. ## At a glance Vercel's figures are at the rates of its default `iad1` region. | | Daytona | Vercel Sandbox | Runtime | | ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | Isolation | Containers by default; VM sandboxes as a separate class | Firecracker microVM, own kernel | Firecracker microVM, own kernel, every sandbox | | CPU | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.128 per active CPU-hour | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor | | Memory | $0.0162 per GiB-hour | $0.0212 per provisioned GB-hour | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour | | Disk | First 5 GiB free, then $0.000108 per GiB-hour | 64 GB of ephemeral NVMe included | Included while running; paused storage $0.08 per GB-month | | Plan fee | None published | Hobby allowance free; usage beyond it needs Pro | None; prepaid credit from $10 | | Free start | $200 of compute | 5 active CPU-hours and 420 GB-hours a month on Hobby | 50 sandbox hours, no card | | Idle and stop | Stops after 15 idle minutes by default | Stop keeps the filesystem; processes start again | Pause keeps files, memory and processes, 1 to 365 days | | Pause with memory | On VM sandboxes | No; snapshots and forks capture the filesystem | Every sandbox, and forks keep memory too | | Regions | US and EU | 19 regions | One US region | ## When is Daytona cheaper than Vercel, and when is it the other way round? The two meter CPU in opposite ways. Daytona charges $0.0504 an hour for each allocated vCPU from start to stop. Vercel charges $0.128 an hour for CPU time the code actually spends, so a sandbox that sits waiting on a model call pays only for its memory. For this 2 vCPU, 4 GiB size the lines cross at about 0.63 of a CPU busy on average, roughly 38 CPU-seconds in every minute. | Workload on 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 1,000 one-minute runs | Daytona | Vercel | Runtime | | ------------------------------------------------ | ------- | ------ | ------- | | Waits on a model, 20 CPU-seconds a run | $2.76 | $2.12 | $0.64 | | Both CPUs busy the whole run | $2.76 | $5.68 | $1.33 | Runtime also bills by use, with a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU, at $0.025 a vCPU-hour, which keeps it lowest in both rows. ## Cost for the same job The worked numbers behind the first row: 1,000 runs, 2 vCPU and 4 GiB (Vercel sells memory at 2 GB per vCPU, so 4 GB there), 60 seconds each, 20 CPU-seconds of real work per run. ``` Daytona CPU 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504 = $1.68 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162 = $1.08 Total $2.76 Vercel CPU 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.128 = $0.71 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0212 = $1.41 Total $2.12 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 ``` A month of 100,000 such runs is $276.00 on Daytona, $212.44 on Vercel and $63.89 on Runtime. The busy case, both CPUs busy for the whole minute, costs $1.33 on Runtime, $2.76 on Daytona and $5.68 on Vercel. Daytona's figure stays put because it was already charging for full use, and Vercel's more than doubles. These sums leave out plan fees, creation charges, disk, network and free allowances. ## Container or microVM? A Daytona sandbox is a container unless you choose its separate VM class, which is also what you need for a pause that keeps memory. Every Vercel sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, as is every Runtime sandbox. The difference matters most when a model writes the code; see [microVM vs container](/compare/microvm-vs-container). Vercel stops rather than pauses: the filesystem survives and processes start again. Daytona stops an idle sandbox after 15 minutes by default. A Runtime pause keeps files, memory and processes for 1 to 365 days, and a [fork](/glossary/sandbox-fork) copies a running sandbox with its memory. ## Which one to pick - **Daytona** suits CPU-heavy jobs, where a flat allocated rate beats paying per busy second, and teams that want GPU sandboxes, Windows machines, an EU region or $200 of free compute to start. - **Vercel Sandbox** suits apps already deployed on Vercel and workloads that need a sandbox close to users: it runs in 19 regions and allows up to 10,000 at once on Pro. - **Runtime** suits agents that spend most of a run waiting: a microVM every time, CPU billed by use at about a fifth of Vercel's rate, memory kept on pause and fork, and no plan fee. ## Moving to Runtime Each SDK has a compatible import on Runtime: ```ts no-run import { Daytona } from "withruntime/daytona"; // was: from "@daytona/sdk" import { Sandbox } from "withruntime/vercel"; // was: from "@vercel/sandbox" ``` ```python no-run from withruntime.daytona import Daytona # was: from daytona import Daytona from withruntime.vercel import sandbox # was: from vercel import sandbox ``` `stop()` behaves as each provider taught you, keeping the disk for a restart, and on Runtime that means a pause; `delete()` removes the sandbox. The [migration](/docs/migrate) guide has one instruction you can hand a coding agent to make the change on a branch, try it on the free trial and report the saving. Running `npx withruntime switch --from daytona` or `--from vercel` before the first top-up adds matching credit, up to $100. Detail on each: [Runtime vs Daytona](/docs/daytona-alternative), [Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox](/docs/vercel-sandbox-alternative). ## Sources Daytona and Vercel pricing pages rechecked 25 September 2026; the rest checked 23 September 2026. - [Daytona pricing](https://www.daytona.io/pricing), [Daytona sandboxes](https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/sandboxes), [Daytona on microVMs, pause and fork](https://www.daytona.io/dotfiles/vms-pause-and-fork) - [Vercel Sandbox pricing](https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/pricing), [Understanding Vercel Sandboxes](https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/concepts) - Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing) Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.