# Northflank vs Runloop: pricing, isolation and limits Both bill allocated CPU and memory while a sandbox runs, at very different rates. A 2 vCPU, 4 GB job: $1.11 on Northflank, $5.33 on Runloop. **For an agent that waits on a model, Runtime is 42% cheaper than Northflank and 88% cheaper than Runloop.** The benchmark job, 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox, costs $1.11 on Northflank, $5.33 on Runloop and $0.64 on Runtime. Both rivals bill the CPUs a sandbox holds; Runtime bills the CPU time it uses. Rates checked 23 September 2026. ## At a glance | | Northflank | Runloop | Runtime | | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | Isolation | Kata Containers and gVisor | microVM, with a container inside | Firecracker microVM, own kernel, every sandbox | | CPU | $0.01667 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.108 per CPU-hour while the devbox runs | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor | | Memory | $0.00833 per GB-hour | $0.0252 per GB-hour | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour | | 2 vCPU, 4 GB, an hour | $0.0667 | $0.3195 (`MEDIUM`, with 8 GB disk) | $0.03125 waiting, $0.08 fully busy | | Running time | No forced limit; seconds to weeks | Billed while initializing, running, suspending, resuming | Leases up to an hour, extended as needed, or `persistent` | | Idle | Runs until you stop it | Suspend keeps the disk; processes restart; Pro plan | Pause keeps files, memory and processes, 1 to 365 days | | Plan fee | None published for compute | Basic free; Pro $250 a month plus usage | None; prepaid credit from $10 | | Free start | 2 free services and 1 free database | $50 of credit, no card; 3 devboxes running at once | 50 sandbox hours, no card | | Where it runs | Its regions, or AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, Civo, Nebius | Deploys into your cloud account; VPC on Enterprise | Dedicated servers Runtime operates | ## Which is cheaper for a sandbox that runs all day? Northflank, by a wide margin. Both bill every allocated CPU and GB for as long as the sandbox runs, but Runloop's CPU rate is about six and a half times Northflank's ($0.108 against $0.01667) and its memory rate about three times ($0.0252 against $0.00833). For one 2 vCPU, 4 GB sandbox left running for a 30-day month of 720 hours: | Provider | An hour | 720 hours | | --------------------------- | -------- | --------- | | Northflank | $0.0667 | $48.00 | | Runloop `MEDIUM` | $0.3195 | $230.04 | | Runtime, waiting on a model | $0.03125 | $22.50 | | Runtime, both CPUs busy | $0.08 | $57.60 | Runloop's figure leaves out the $250-a-month Pro plan, which suspend and resume need. An agent sandbox spends most of its hours waiting, and there Runtime is the cheapest: it bills the floor of a twentieth of a vCPU rather than two whole vCPUs. ## Cost for the same job Short runs instead of an all-day box: 1,000 of them, 60 seconds each, with 20 CPU-seconds of work, on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB. Northflank is sized at 4 GB; Runloop's `MEDIUM` devbox has 2 CPUs, 4 GB and 8 GB of disk. ``` 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 Runloop CPU 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.108 = $3.60 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0252 = $1.68 Disk 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 8 × $0.00034236 = $0.05 Total $5.33 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 ``` At 100,000 runs a month the totals are $111.10 on Northflank, $532.56 on Runloop and $63.89 on Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, the order at the top changes: $1.11 on Northflank, $1.33 on Runtime, $5.33 on Runloop. When every CPU works all the time, Northflank's low allocated rate is the cheapest way to pay. Plan fees, idle storage, network, taxes and free allowances are left aside. ## Which one to pick - **Northflank** for long-running sandboxes that keep every CPU busy, for L4, A100 and H100 GPUs by the hour, or for sandboxes placed in your own cloud account alongside your other services. - **Runloop** for a benchmarking platform: public suites such as SWE-Bench run for you, custom benchmarks built from your data, and stated SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR readiness. - **Runtime** for agents that spend their time on model calls: 42% below Northflank and 88% below Runloop on the typical run, a Firecracker microVM per sandbox, pause and [forks](/glossary/sandbox-fork) that keep memory, and guardrails such as a daily spending limit per key. Benchmarks run here too: [agent evals and SWE-bench](/use-cases/agent-evals-and-swe-bench). ## Moving a long-lived sandbox There is no drop-in import for either; follow [map the calls](/docs/migrate#map-the-calls). A Northflank service kept up for weeks, or a Runloop devbox that never goes away, maps to a persistent Runtime sandbox with a cap on its lifetime spend: ```ts check import { Sandbox } from "withruntime"; // Runs while credit lasts; restart() brings it back after a stop. const server = await Sandbox.create({ funding: "paid", persistent: true, maxTotalCostMicros: 50_000_000, // at most $50 over its life }); await server.update({ persistent: false }); // back to an ordinary lease await server.stop(); ``` ```python check from withruntime import Sandbox server = Sandbox.create(funding="paid", persistent=True, max_total_cost_micros=50_000_000) server.update(persistent=False) # back to an ordinary lease server.stop() ``` To compare on your own numbers, `npx withruntime compare --from northflank` or `--from runloop` reprices what you ran. The one instruction in [migration](/docs/migrate) lets a coding agent do the port on a branch and test it on the free trial. See also [Runtime vs Northflank](/docs/northflank-alternative) and [Runtime vs Runloop](/docs/runloop-alternative). ## Sources Rates checked 23 September 2026. Northflank's pricing and sandbox pages and Runloop's pricing page and devbox sizes reread 25 September 2026. - [Northflank pricing](https://northflank.com/pricing), [Northflank sandboxes](https://northflank.com/product/sandboxes), [Sandboxes on Northflank](https://northflank.com/docs/v1/application/sandboxes/sandboxes-on-northflank) - [Runloop pricing](https://www.runloop.ai/pricing), [Devbox sizes](https://docs.runloop.ai/docs/devboxes/configuration/sizes), [Devbox lifecycle](https://docs.runloop.ai/docs/devboxes/lifecycle) - Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing) and [JavaScript SDK](/docs/javascript#keep-a-sandbox-running) Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.