Which is better, Freestyle or Prime Sandboxes?
It depends on how big each sandbox is and how many run at the same time. If your agent mostly waits on model replies, Runtime is the cheapest here: $0.64 for 1,000 one-minute runs, against $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.52 on Prime. It also has forks and pauses that keep memory, and no plan fee. Pick Freestyle for VMs of up to 32 vCPUs that fork without a pause. Pick Prime Sandboxes for rollouts by the thousand inside Prime Intellect.
At a glance
| Freestyle | Prime Sandboxes | Runtime | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Full Linux virtual machines | Hardware-virtualized microVM, own guest kernel | Firecracker microVM, own kernel |
| CPU | $0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.02 per vCPU-hour while running | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory | $0.0129 per GiB-hour | $0.0125 per GiB-hour | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour |
| Forks | Live, without pausing the VM | From a filesystem checkpoint; no memory | Up to 10 copies of a running sandbox |
| At once | 10 free, 40 Hobby, 400 Pro | 1,024 per account to start | 100 paid |
| Plan | Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month | None; rates through 22 December 2026 | None; prepaid credit from $10 |
Forks today, or scale today
Freestyle's strength is state: live forks and weeks-long hibernation. Prime's strength is breadth: a thousand microVMs per account from the start, at about half Freestyle's CPU rate, with forks that copy files only. Runtime has forks and memory-keeping pauses now, and prices waiting time at a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU.
Cost for the same job
The benchmark is 60 seconds a run, with each rival's default disk (32 GiB on Freestyle, 5 GiB on Prime):
- 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
- CPU
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.02
- $0.67
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0125
- $0.83
- Disk
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 5 × $0.0002
- $0.02
- CPU
- 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025
- $0.14
- Memory
- 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075
- $0.50
At 100,000 runs a month, the cost is $224.99 on Freestyle, $151.67 on Prime, and $63.89 on Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute: $2.25 on Freestyle, $1.52 on Prime, and $1.33 on Runtime.
Which one to pick
- Freestyle for VMs of up to 32 vCPUs that fork without a pause.
- Prime Sandboxes for rollouts by the thousand inside Prime Intellect.
- Runtime for the lowest price per run, forks and pauses that keep memory, and no plan fee.
See Runtime vs Freestyle and Runtime vs Prime Sandboxes.
Runtime Cloud
Runtime costs 72% less than Freestyle and 58% less than Prime on this benchmark. The benchmark is 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, with 20 CPU-seconds of work in each run: $2.25 on Freestyle, $1.52 on Prime Sandboxes and $0.64 on Runtime.
Runtime bills the CPU your code uses, in a Firecracker microVM per sandbox. Sign in with npx withruntime login to start free. Use the migration guide to bring existing code.
Sources
Freestyle and Prime rates were checked 25 October 2026.
- Freestyle pricing, Freestyle VM pricing and limits
- Prime Sandboxes overview, Prime Sandboxes launch
- Runtime pricing
Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.