# E2B vs Freestyle: pricing, plans and VM features

E2B and Freestyle both bill the CPU and memory a sandbox holds while it runs. The same 2 vCPU, 4 GiB job: $2.76 on E2B, $2.25 on Freestyle.

**Runtime runs it for 77% less than E2B and 72% less than Freestyle.** A
thousand one-minute runs at 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, each doing 20 CPU-seconds of
work, come to $2.76 on E2B, $2.25 on Freestyle and $0.64 on Runtime, because
Runtime charges measured CPU where both rivals charge for held cores.

## At a glance

|           | E2B                                    | Freestyle                                           | Runtime                                                  |
| --------- | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM, own kernel        | Full Linux virtual machines                         | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| 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      | Included                               | $0.000086 per GiB-hour, allocated                   | Included while it runs                                   |
| Plans     | Hobby $0; Pro $150 a month             | Free; Hobby $50; Pro $500 a month, counted to usage | None; prepaid credit from $10                            |
| At once   | Set by plan                            | 10 free, 40 Hobby, 400 Pro                          | 100 on a paid account; 50 for its first week             |
| Pause     | Files, memory and processes, no expiry | Hibernate with memory; storage billed while asleep  | Files, memory and processes, 1 to 365 days               |

## Where the two differ

Freestyle's rates are about a fifth lower than E2B's on both meters, so it
wins this job by 51 cents. Its plans work differently: the fee buys the same
amount of usage and raises how many VMs run at once and how big they get, up to
32 vCPUs and 64 GiB on Pro. E2B's Pro plan instead buys longer sessions, 24
hours against Hobby's one. Freestyle adds live forks that clone a VM without
pausing it; E2B adds an open-source runtime you can host yourself.

## Cost for the same job

The benchmark: 1,000 runs of 60 seconds on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, 20 CPU-seconds
each. Freestyle keeps its default 32 GiB disk.

```
E2B       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

Freestyle 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
          Total                                                  $2.25

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
```

Monthly, at 100,000 runs: $276.00 on E2B, $224.99 on Freestyle before its plan,
$63.89 on Runtime. Keep both CPUs busy for the whole minute and it is $2.76 on E2B, $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.33 on Runtime, so the order holds.

## Which one to pick

- **E2B** for its large ecosystem of templates and integrations, and a runtime
  you can self-host.
- **Freestyle** for VMs that fork live, or one VM with 32 vCPUs on Pro.
- **Runtime** when agents wait on models: under under a third of Freestyle's bill and a
  quarter of E2B's here, no plan to buy for 100 sandboxes at once (50 in the
  first week), and sandboxes up to 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB. E2B code moves with one
  import (`withruntime/e2b`).

More detail: [Runtime vs E2B](/docs/e2b-alternative),
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative) and the
[Freestyle pricing calculator](/calculators/freestyle-pricing-calculator).

## Sources

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

- [E2B pricing](https://e2b.dev/pricing), [E2B sandbox persistence](https://docs.e2b.dev/sandbox/persistence)
- [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.