# Northflank vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs: allocated pricing compared

Both bill the vCPUs a sandbox holds, at very different rates: $1.11 on Northflank and $4.20 on Lambda for the 2 vCPU benchmark.

**For an agent that waits on a model, Runtime is 42% cheaper than Northflank
and 85% cheaper than Lambda MicroVMs.** 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU,
4 GiB sandbox with 20 CPU-seconds of work each cost $1.11 on Northflank, $4.20
on AWS Lambda MicroVMs and $0.64 on Runtime.

## At a glance

|           | Northflank                                         | AWS Lambda MicroVMs            | Runtime                                                  |
| --------- | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | A microVM per workload, Kata Containers or gVisor  | Firecracker microVM            | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| CPU       | $0.01667 per allocated vCPU-hour                   | $0.0997 per baseline vCPU-hour | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory    | $0.00833 per GB-hour                               | $0.0132 per GB-hour            | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                            |
| Lifetime  | Runs until you stop it                             | State kept up to 8 hours       | Leases extended as needed, or `persistent`               |
| Where     | Its regions, or your own AWS, GCP or Azure account | AWS regions                    | Dedicated servers Runtime operates, one US region        |
| GPUs      | L4, A100 and H100 by the hour                      | No                             | No                                                       |

## Six times the CPU rate

The two meters work the same way, a price per vCPU for every second the
sandbox exists, so the gap is purely the rate: Lambda's $0.0997 per vCPU-hour
is about six times Northflank's $0.01667. Both can run inside AWS, since
Northflank deploys into your own account too; Lambda additionally speaks IAM
and your VPC natively.

## Cost for the same job

2 vCPU and 4 GiB (4 GB on both rivals), 60 seconds a run, 20 CPU-seconds of
work, 1,000 runs:

```
Northflank  CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.01667           = $0.556
            Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.00833           = $0.555
            Total                                                  $1.11

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

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
```

When both CPUs stay busy for the whole minute, the job costs $1.33 on Runtime,
$4.20 on Lambda and $1.11 on Northflank. That is the one case where
Northflank's low allocated rate beats measured billing.

## Which one to pick

- **Northflank** for CPU-bound work that keeps every core busy, or GPUs.
- **Lambda MicroVMs** for short bursts inside an AWS VPC.
- **Runtime** for agents that mostly wait: the lowest bill of the three, and
  a sandbox created in one call.

See [Runtime vs Northflank](/docs/northflank-alternative) and
[Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs](/docs/aws-lambda-microvms-alternative).

## Sources

Northflank rates checked 23 September 2026; Lambda MicroVMs rates checked 25 September 2026.

- [Northflank pricing](https://northflank.com/pricing), [Northflank sandboxes](https://northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- [AWS Lambda pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/), [Lambda MicroVMs](https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/lambda-microvms/)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.