E2B vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs: pricing, sessions and limits

Both run each sandbox in a Firecracker microVM and bill held vCPUs. A 2 vCPU, 4 GiB job: $2.76 on E2B, $4.20 on Lambda MicroVMs.

Runtime runs the same job for 77% less than E2B and 85% less than Lambda MicroVMs. 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox cost $2.76 on E2B, $4.20 on AWS Lambda MicroVMs and $0.64 on Runtime. All three use Firecracker; only Runtime bills the CPU the code used instead of every vCPU it holds.

At a glance

	E2B	AWS Lambda MicroVMs	Runtime
Isolation	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Firecracker microVM	Firecracker microVM, own kernel
CPU	$0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour	$0.0997 per baseline vCPU-hour, billed by second	$0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor
Memory	$0.0162 per GiB-hour	$0.0132 per GB-hour, 2 GB per vCPU	$0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour
Largest	8 vCPUs and 8 GiB	A 4 vCPU, 8 GB baseline	16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid
Session	1 hour on Hobby, 24 hours on Pro	State kept up to 8 hours	Leases extended as needed, or persistent
Idle	Pause keeps memory, with no expiry	Suspends after 5 idle minutes into a snapshot	Pause keeps memory, 1 to 365 days
Free start	$100 of usage credit, once	No free tier for MicroVMs	100 sandbox hours, no card

Why is Lambda dearer than E2B here?

Lambda's memory rate is a little lower per unit, but its CPU is about twice E2B's: $0.0997 per vCPU-hour against $0.0504. For a 2 vCPU sandbox that is $0.199 an hour of CPU on Lambda and $0.101 on E2B, whatever the code does. Neither discounts a vCPU for sitting idle while the agent waits on its model. Runtime does: waiting costs a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU.

Cost for the same job

1,000 runs, 60 seconds each, 20 CPU-seconds of work, 2 vCPU and 4 GiB (a 4 GB baseline on Lambda):

TextE2B       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                                                  $2.76Lambda    CPU    1,000 × 60 s × 2 × $0.0000276944              = $3.32          Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.0000036667              = $0.88          Total                                                  $4.20Runtime   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

At 100,000 runs a month that is $276.00 on E2B, $420.33 on Lambda MicroVMs and $63.89 on Runtime. Were the agent busy for the whole minute on both CPUs, the job would cost $1.33 on Runtime, still the lowest, with $2.76 on E2B and $4.20 on Lambda unchanged, since both already bill every vCPU as if it worked.

Sessions: one hour, eight hours, or as long as you like

E2B's free Hobby plan caps a session at an hour; Pro at $150 a month lifts it to 24. A Lambda MicroVM keeps its memory and disk for up to eight hours, and suspends after five idle minutes, when compute stops and snapshot storage starts at $0.08 per GB-month. A Runtime sandbox has a lease you extend as often as you like, or persistent: true keeps a paid one running while credit lasts, and a pause keeps its memory for as many days as you set, up to 365.

Which one to pick

• E2B if you want to self-host later (its runtime is Apache-2.0) or keep paused sandboxes with no expiry.
• Lambda MicroVMs if everything else is already on AWS: IAM, VPC access through the Lambda Network Connector, and many regions.
• Runtime for agents that wait on models: the lowest bill of the three at any level of use, sandboxes up to 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, and forks that copy a running machine. withruntime/e2b runs E2B code by changing one import.

See Runtime vs E2B and Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs.

Sources

E2B rates checked 23 September 2026; Lambda rates checked 25 September 2026.

• E2B pricing, E2B sandbox persistence
• AWS Lambda pricing, Lambda MicroVMs
• Runtime pricing

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.