E2B vs Runloop E2B is 48% cheaper per agent run

Which is better, E2B or Runloop?

It depends on whether you want evaluation tooling from your sandbox vendor. For a general agent sandbox, Runtime costs the least, whether busy or idle: $0.64 for this job, against $2.76 on E2B and $5.33 on Runloop. Every Runtime sandbox has forks and a pause that keeps memory, and there is no plan fee. Pick Runloop to evaluate models on your own workload, or to deploy into your own VPC. Pick E2B to self-host.

At a glance

Why is Runloop more expensive than E2B?

Its rates are higher on every meter. Runloop's CPU costs $0.108 per CPU-hour, a little over twice E2B's $0.0504. Its memory costs $0.0252 per GB-hour, against E2B's $0.0162 per GiB-hour. Runloop also bills disk while a devbox runs: 8 GB on a MEDIUM costs about $0.003 an hour. A 2 CPU, 4 GB devbox costs about $0.32 an hour, against $0.1656 on E2B.

Both bill for as long as the machine runs, so neither gets cheaper when the agent waits on a model. The difference is in what is included. Runloop evaluates models on your own workload, generates RL rollouts, and deploys into your own VPC on Enterprise. E2B is a sandbox API with a code interpreter and a runtime you can self-host.

What happens when a sandbox is paused?

A paused E2B sandbox keeps its files, memory and running processes, and it is kept with no expiry. A suspended Runloop devbox has no compute or memory charge and keeps its disk, but its processes must be started again. Suspend and resume come with the Pro plan.

A paused Runtime sandbox keeps files, memory and running processes on every sandbox, on a paid account while you have credit, and wakes on the next request:

Pythonfrom withruntime import Sandboxsbx = Sandbox.create(timeout_seconds=600)sbx.exec("echo state > /workspace/state.txt")sbx.pause()  # memory and files are kept; compute billing stopsagain = Sandbox.connect(sbx.id)again.wake(timeout_seconds=1200)again.extend(600)again.stop()

Cost for the same job

1,000 runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox. On Runloop that is the MEDIUM devbox: 2 CPUs, 4 GB and 8 GB of disk. Each run lasts 60 seconds and keeps the CPU busy for 20 CPU-seconds: an agent that mostly waits for a model.

At 100,000 runs per month that is $276.00 on E2B, $532.56 on Runloop and $63.89 on Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, it is $1.33 on Runtime against $2.76 on E2B and $5.33 on Runloop, so Runtime is cheaper however busy the sandbox is. Plan fees, storage while suspended, network and free credits are left out.

Which one to pick

• Pick E2B for a general agent sandbox at about half of Runloop's rates, pause that keeps memory, or a runtime you can self-host under Apache-2.0.
• Pick Runloop if you evaluate models on your own workload and want that tooling from the same vendor, or need deployment into your own VPC with SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR readiness stated.
• Pick Runtime for 77% below E2B's price and 88% below Runloop's on an agent that waits, pause and forks that keep memory and processes on every sandbox, and no plan fee.

Switch from either one

From E2B, Runtime's SDK runs your code after one import change:

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

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

From Runloop, a devbox becomes a sandbox: create it with Sandbox.create(), run commands with exec, move files with files.write and files.read, suspend and resume with pause() and wake(), and shut it down with stop(). A blueprint you build once becomes a custom image.

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime";const box = await Sandbox.create();try {  await box.files.write("/workspace/invoice.py", "print(sum([125, 250, 375]))\n");  console.log((await box.exec("python3 /workspace/invoice.py", { check: true })).stdout);} finally {  await box.stop();}

Or give your coding agent the one instruction in migration: it switches the project on a branch, tests it on the free usage and reports the monthly saving. The full comparisons are Runtime vs E2B and Runtime vs Runloop. Running benchmarks on Runtime is covered in agent evals and SWE-bench.

Sources

E2B and Runloop pricing pages rechecked 25 October 2026; the rest checked 25 October 2026.

• E2B pricing, E2B sandbox persistence
• Runloop pricing, Devbox sizes, Devbox lifecycle, Runloop
• Runtime pricing and custom images

Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.