# Vercel Sandbox vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs: two clouds' Firecracker sandboxes

Vercel bills active CPU, Lambda MicroVMs bill the baseline. On the 2 vCPU, 4 GiB benchmark that is $2.12 on Vercel and $4.20 on Lambda.

**Runtime runs it for 70% less than Vercel and 85% less than Lambda.** The
benchmark is 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox that computes
for 20 CPU-seconds of each minute: $2.12 on Vercel Sandbox, $4.20 on AWS Lambda
MicroVMs, $0.64 on Runtime. All three run Firecracker.

## At a glance

|           | Vercel Sandbox                                       | AWS Lambda MicroVMs                          | Runtime                                                  |
| --------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                      | Firecracker microVM                          | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                          |
| CPU       | $0.128 per active CPU-hour, `iad1`                   | $0.0997 per baseline vCPU-hour               | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory    | $0.0212 per provisioned GB-hour                      | $0.0132 per GB-hour                          | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                            |
| Largest   | 8 vCPUs and 16 GB on Pro; 32 and 64 GB on Enterprise | A 4 vCPU, 8 GB baseline                      | 16 vCPUs and 64 GiB, paid                                |
| Idle      | Stop keeps the filesystem; processes start again     | Suspend keeps memory and disk, up to 8 hours | Pause keeps memory and processes, 1 to 365 days          |
| Regions   | 19                                                   | AWS regions                                  | One US region                                            |

## Active CPU against the baseline

Vercel and Runtime both charge CPU only while it works, which is why Vercel
beats Lambda on a waiting agent even though its CPU rate is the highest of the
three. Lambda charges its baseline for every second a MicroVM is up. The order
flips when the work gets busy, because then Vercel's $0.128 rate bites.

## Cost for the same job

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

```
Vercel    CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.128                 = $0.71
          Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0212            = $1.41
          Total                                                  $2.12

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
```

That is $212.44, $420.33 and $63.89 for a month of 100,000 runs. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute the job costs $5.68 on Vercel, $4.20 on Lambda and $1.33 on Runtime, so Lambda becomes cheaper than Vercel and Runtime stays cheapest.

## Which one to pick

- **Vercel Sandbox** for apps already on Vercel, in any of 19 regions.
- **Lambda MicroVMs** for workloads that live inside an AWS VPC.
- **Runtime** for active-CPU billing at a fifth of Vercel's rate, memory kept
  across pauses, and `withruntime/vercel` for Vercel Sandbox code after one
  import changes.

See [Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox](/docs/vercel-sandbox-alternative) and
[Runtime vs AWS Lambda MicroVMs](/docs/aws-lambda-microvms-alternative).

## Sources

Vercel rates checked 23 September 2026; Lambda rates checked 25 September 2026.

- [Vercel Sandbox pricing](https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/pricing), [Understanding Vercel Sandboxes](https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/concepts)
- [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.