E2B alternatives: agent sandboxes ranked by cost

Runtime is the cheapest E2B alternative, 77% less for the same job; Northflank, Cloudflare, Fly Machines and Morph also cost less.

Leaving E2B for Runtime keeps the Firecracker microVM and cuts the bill by 77%. A job of 1,000 one-minute runs on a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox is $0.64 on Runtime and $2.76 on E2B, a difference of $212 a month at 100,000 runs. E2B charges for every vCPU a sandbox holds; Runtime charges for the CPU time the code actually burns. Moving takes one changed import. Rates checked 23 September 2026.

Estimated compute cost

77% less than E2B77% less than Daytona70% less than Vercel Sandbox

2 vCPUs · 4 GiB · 60 s a run · 20 CPU-seconds busy

Runs1,000

Compute only, at list rates checked 23 September 2026 (E2B pricing, Daytona pricing, Vercel Sandbox pricing). Plan fees, network, taxes and free credits are left out. The worked example below shows the arithmetic.

Why do teams leave E2B?

E2B and Runtime isolate code the same way, so the reasons to move are about the bill and the plan rather than the security model:

Held vCPUs are billed while the agent thinks. E2B's $0.0504 per vCPU-hour applies to every allocated vCPU for the whole life of the sandbox. In the example, 40 of each run's 60 seconds pass waiting on a model, and E2B bills both vCPUs through all of them.
Memory costs more than twice as much. E2B lists $0.0162 per GiB-hour; Runtime lists $0.0075.
Long sessions need Pro. A Hobby sandbox lives at most an hour, and 24 hours needs Pro at $150 a month. A Runtime lease of up to an hour can be extended as often as you like, on prepaid credit from $10 with no plan.
Concurrency comes in tiers. E2B's pricing page, read on 25 September 2026, allows 20 sandboxes at once on Hobby and 100 on Pro, with paid add-ons for 600 or 1,100. A paid Runtime account starts at 100 at once with no plan fee, and support raises the limit when you send your numbers.
Agents carry an API key. Runtime signs an agent in with a browser approval instead, so no key ends up in a prompt or a config file.

Which alternatives are cheapest?

Every row prices one job at list rates: 1,000 runs, each 60 seconds long on a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, with 20 CPU-seconds of real work per run. For an E2B user, the column to read is the last one against row 8. The arithmetic behind each figure is on pricing; plan fees, storage, network, credits and negotiated deals stay out of it.

#	Provider	Isolation	CPU billed on	1,000 runs
1	Runtime	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Measured CPU, with a small floor	$0.64
2	Northflank	microVMs for CPU work, gVisor for GPU work	Allocated vCPUs	$1.11
3	Cloudflare Sandbox (2 vCPU, 6 GiB, 12 GB disk)	A container in its own VM	Active CPU	$1.35
4	Fly Machines, `performance-2x` with 4 GB	Firecracker microVM	The machine's size while started	$1.44
5	Morph, 2 MCUs	Full virtual machines	The machine's size in MCUs	$1.67
6	Vercel Sandbox, `iad1` (4 GB)	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Active CPU	$2.12
7	CodeSandbox SDK, a Nano VM	Firecracker microVM	The VM's size, by the minute rounded up	$2.48
8	E2B (the one you are replacing)	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Allocated vCPUs	$2.76
9	Daytona	Containers by default; VM class separate	Allocated vCPUs	$2.76
10	Blaxel (4 GB)	Lightweight virtual machines	Included with memory, active time	$2.76
11	Fly Sprites (4 GB in use)	Firecracker microVM	Measured CPU	$3.31
12	Modal Sandboxes (1 physical core)	gVisor, a user-space kernel	Requested or used, whichever is higher	$3.97
13	Runloop, a `MEDIUM` devbox	microVM, with a container inside	Allocated CPUs while running	$5.33

Cost for the same job

The lines for Runtime, E2B, Daytona (which publishes E2B's exact rates) and Vercel (the other Firecracker host that bills active CPU):

TextRuntime  CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025       = $0.14         Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075  = $0.50         Total                                         $0.64E2B      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                                         $2.76Daytona  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                                         $2.76Vercel   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

Had the agent kept both CPUs busy for the whole minute, the job would come to $1.33 on Runtime, $2.76 on E2B, $2.76 on Daytona and $5.68 on Vercel. E2B's figure stays put because it already bills each vCPU as if it were working; Runtime's rises and still ends up under half of it. At 100,000 runs a month, the waiting job is $63.89 on Runtime and $276.00 on E2B.

What each alternative offers an E2B user

1. Runtime: the same microVM, a meter that reads use

Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, as on E2B, but the CPU meter counts what the code consumed: $0.025 per vCPU-hour, never below a twentieth of a vCPU, plus $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour. A pause keeps memory and running processes, as E2B's does, for 1 to 365 days at $0.08 per GB a month. The withruntime/e2b package takes E2B code with only the import changed.

2. Northflank: E2B's billing model with smaller numbers

Northflank charges $0.01667 per allocated vCPU-hour, a third of E2B's, and $0.00833 per GB-hour, and it is the one provider here that undercuts Runtime when both CPUs stay busy, $1.11 to $1.33. Each sandbox is a service with a deployment plan, and it can run inside your own AWS, GCP or Azure account.

3. Cloudflare Sandbox: when the app already lives on Workers

Active CPU at $0.072 per vCPU-hour, but at least 3 GiB per vCPU, so this job is priced at 6 GiB, and the Workers Paid plan from $5 a month. Where an E2B pause holds state, a Cloudflare sandbox idle for 10 minutes sleeps and loses its files unless you copied them to R2.

4. Fly Machines: a whole machine for less than E2B's parts

The same Firecracker underneath, billed by size for each second a Machine is started. A performance-2x with 4 GB costs $0.0861 an hour in iad, against $0.1656 an hour for 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB at E2B's rates, so it wins busy or idle. There are 18 regions to pick from; the root disk does not survive the Machine.

5. Morph: branch a sandbox while it runs

This job fits in 2 MCUs at $0.05 each, $0.10 an hour. Infinibranch copies a running machine, memory included, into hundreds of replicas, for agents that try several paths from one starting state.

6. Vercel Sandbox: active CPU at a high rate

Firecracker again, billing only active CPU, but at $0.128 per CPU-hour, so it beats E2B only while the agent waits: $2.12 to $2.76, then $5.68 once both CPUs work. It runs in 19 regions, 10,000 sandboxes at once on Pro.

7. CodeSandbox SDK: a fixed VM, rounded to the minute

A Nano VM, 2 cores and 4 GB, costs $0.1486 an hour in credits, a little under E2B's price for the same shape. Each run is billed by the minute, rounded up, and more than 10 VMs at once needs the Scale plan at $170 a month.

8. Daytona: the same meter, plus GPUs and Windows

Daytona publishes E2B's rates to the fourth decimal, so moving saves nothing. It adds GPU sandboxes, Windows machines, US and EU regions and $200 of free compute, with a container as the default sandbox.

9. Blaxel: one memory meter, standby built in

Active memory at $0.0000115 per GB-second, with CPU included, lands this job on E2B's $2.76 exactly. A sandbox drops to standby when its connections close and resumes in about 25 ms.

10. Fly Sprites: measured CPU, costly memory

Sprites meter CPU the way Runtime does, at $0.07 per CPU-hour, but charge $0.04375 per GB-hour for memory in use, which puts this job above E2B at $3.31. A Sprite pauses on its own and keeps a 100 GB disk.

gVisor, a user-space kernel, instead of a microVM, and CPU billed on the larger of request and use at $0.1419 per physical core-hour: $3.97 for the job. The draw is GPUs beside Modal's functions and scheduled jobs.

12. Runloop: benchmark tooling at a premium

$0.108 per CPU-hour and $0.0252 per GB-hour plus disk, almost double E2B at $5.33, in return for SWE-Bench and other public benchmarks ready to run.

How to switch from E2B

Install Runtime's SDK, version 0.4.0 or later, and point the import at its E2B layer. Authenticate with RUNTIME_API_KEY or a one-time npx withruntime login:

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime/e2b"; // was: from "e2b"

Pythonfrom withruntime.e2b import Sandbox  # was: from e2b import Sandbox

The code interpreter has its own drop-ins, withruntime/e2b/code-interpreter and withruntime.e2b.code_interpreter. Where a call has no direct match, such as an E2B template or a single lease longer than an hour, it throws NotSupportedError before doing anything and says which Runtime feature to use.

To hand the move off, paste the single instruction from migration into your coding agent. It ports the project on a branch, runs it on the free trial and reports the monthly difference. Run npx withruntime switch --from e2b before you first add credit, and that first top-up is matched, up to $100. For closer looks, read E2B vs Daytona, E2B vs Modal, E2B vs Vercel Sandbox or price your own workload in the E2B pricing calculator.

Sources

Rival rates checked 23 September 2026. E2B's pricing page was read again on 25 September 2026 for its plan limits.

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.