Vercel Sandbox vs Morph: pricing, snapshots and branching

Vercel bills active CPU plus memory in Firecracker microVMs; Morph bills full VMs by size in MCUs and branches running machines with memory.

Runtime forks a live sandbox with its memory, as Morph does, and bills by use, as Vercel does, for 62% and 70% less. 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox cost $2.12 on Vercel, $1.67 on Morph and $0.64 on Runtime. Runtime's measured CPU is about a fifth of Vercel's rate. Rates checked 23 September 2026.

At a glance

Vercel's column uses its default iad1 region rates.

	Vercel Sandbox	Morph Cloud	Runtime
Isolation	Firecracker microVM, own kernel	Full virtual machines	Firecracker microVM, own kernel
CPU	$0.128 per active CPU-hour	$0.05 per MCU-hour for the machine's size	$0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor
Memory	$0.0212 per provisioned GB-hour; 2 GB per vCPU	Inside the MCU: 4 GB per MCU	$0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour
Plan fee	Hobby allowance free; Pro usage draws on its $20 monthly credit first	Free with no credit; Developer $40, Team $250 a month	None; prepaid credit from $10
Free start	5 active CPU-hours and 420 GB-hours a month on Hobby	1,000 MCUs with the $40 Developer plan	50 sandbox hours, no card
Snapshots	The filesystem; expire 30 days after last use by default	Memory and disk	Files, memory and processes; kept 1 to 365 days
Copies of a running sandbox	A fork of the filesystem; processes start again	Infinibranch, to hundreds of replicas	Forks: 1 to 10 running copies, memory included
Snapshot storage	$0.08 per GB-month	Inside the MCU: 5 TB snapshot-hours per MCU	$0.08 per GB-month; a fork's own snapshot is free

What does a snapshot keep on each?

The question matters for agents that set up an environment once and try several things from it.

• Vercel snapshots and forks capture the filesystem. A sandbox started from one has the files but starts its processes again, so a dev server or a loaded model has to boot a second time. Snapshots expire 30 days after their last use unless you change the retention.
• Morph snapshots keep memory and disk. Infinibranch branches a running machine, memory included, into hundreds of parallel replicas, which is what Morph is built around.
• Runtime forks keep files, memory and running processes, from 1 to 10 running copies per call. The source pauses for about a second on a fresh sandbox and then carries on. A kept snapshot starts copies later, for 1 to 365 days.

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime";await using base = await Sandbox.create({ funding: "trial" });await base.spawn("python3 -m http.server 8000"); // a process the copies inheritconst [a, b] = await base.fork({ count: 2 }); // both running, server includedfor (const copy of [a!, b!]) {  const probe =    "import urllib.request; print(urllib.request.urlopen('http://localhost:8000').status)";  console.log((await copy.exec(["python3", "-c", probe])).stdout); // 200 in each copy  await copy.stop();}

See what a sandbox fork is and what a snapshot keeps.

Why is Morph cheaper than Vercel for this job?

Because of memory. Vercel bills 4 GB at $0.0212 a GB-hour, $0.0848 an hour, before any CPU. Morph's 2 MCUs, $0.10 an hour, cover 2 vCPUs and 4 GB together, busy or idle. Vercel's CPU charge then decides it: Vercel is cheaper only while a one-minute run uses less than about 7 CPU-seconds, and with both CPUs busy the whole minute it costs more than three times as much.

Cost for the same job

The sums use 1,000 runs, 60 seconds long, each spending 20 CPU-seconds on 2 vCPU with 4 GiB; that is 4 GB on Vercel and 2 MCUs on Morph.

TextVercel   CPU    1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.128        = $0.71         Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0212   = $1.41         Total                                          $2.12Morph    Size   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 MCU × $0.05 = $1.67Runtime  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: $212.44 on Vercel, $166.67 on Morph, $63.89 on Runtime. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, it is $1.33 on Runtime, $5.68 on Vercel and $1.67 on Morph. Plan fees, included credit, creation charges, snapshot storage, network and free allowances are not part of these figures.

Which one to pick

• Vercel Sandbox suits an app hosted on Vercel, or a need for sandboxes in many places: 19 regions, with up to 10,000 at once on Pro.
• Morph suits fan-out from one running machine to hundreds of replicas, and shared devboxes for people that hold their memory while idle.
• Runtime suits agents that fork and snapshot with memory kept, at 62% below Morph and 70% below Vercel, with no plan fee.

Moving to Runtime

Vercel Sandbox code runs after an import change. As on Vercel, stop() keeps the disk, which on Runtime means a pause, and delete() removes the sandbox:

TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime/vercel"; // was: from "@vercel/sandbox"

Pythonfrom withruntime.vercel import sandbox  # was: from vercel import sandbox

Morph code is ported with map the calls: starting an instance, commands, files and stopping each have one call; a Morph snapshot is snapshot(), and a branch is fork({ count }).

The migration guide's single instruction lets a coding agent make the port on a branch and test it on the free trial. Coming from Vercel, npx withruntime switch --from vercel before the first top-up matches it with up to $100 of credit. Full comparisons: Runtime vs Vercel Sandbox, Runtime vs Morph.

Sources

Vercel Sandbox and Morph Cloud pricing rechecked 25 September 2026; the rest checked 23 September 2026.

• Vercel Sandbox pricing, Understanding Vercel Sandboxes
• Morph Cloud pricing, Morph Devboxes, Morph snapshots
• Runtime pricing

Facts on this page were checked on 25 September 2026.