Runtime vs Daytona
Runtime and Daytona both run AI agents in isolated Linux sandboxes; Runtime bills the CPU your code uses, not the CPUs it holds.
This page compares the two for teams looking for a Daytona alternative. Facts about Daytona come from its public pricing and documentation, checked 22 September 2026; check the links at the end before relying on them. Equal vCPU counts do not prove equal performance, and the two services have not been benchmarked against each other.
At a glance
| Runtime | Daytona | |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM for every sandbox | Container sandboxes and VM sandboxes |
| CPU billing | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour |
| Memory billing | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour | $0.0162 per GiB-hour |
| Disk | Included while running; paused storage $0.08 per GB-month | First 5 GiB free, then $0.000108 per GiB-hour, stopped or not |
| Plan fee | None; prepaid credit from $10 | None published |
| Free start | 20 sandbox hours, no card | $200 of compute |
| Pause and resume | Files and memory, every sandbox | Files and memory on VM sandboxes |
| Regions | One | US and EU |
| GPUs and Windows | Neither | Both |
Cost for the same job
Take 1,000 runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox. Each run lasts 60 seconds and keeps the CPU busy for 20 CPU-seconds, which is typical of an agent that spends most of its time waiting for a model.
TextRuntime CPU 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025 = $0.14 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075 = $0.50 Total $0.64Daytona CPU 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504 = $1.68 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162 = $1.08 Total $2.76Daytona bills the vCPUs a sandbox has for as long as it runs. Runtime bills the CPU the sandbox measurably used, with a default floor of a twentieth of a vCPU. With both CPUs busy for the whole minute, the same job costs $1.33 on Runtime and $2.76 on Daytona. Disk, network, taxes and free credits are excluded from both. See pricing for Runtime's terms.
Where Daytona is stronger
- GPUs and Windows. Daytona offers GPU sandboxes and Windows machines. Runtime has neither.
- Regions. Daytona runs in the US and the EU. Runtime runs in one region.
- Credits. Daytona starts accounts with $200 of compute and runs a startup program. Runtime's trial is 20 sandbox hours.
- Snapshots and forks. Runtime's are paused while an issue is fixed; build a custom image to start many sandboxes from one setup.
Where Runtime is stronger
- Cost for agents that wait. CPU you do not use is not billed.
- One kind of sandbox. Every Runtime sandbox is a microVM with its own kernel, and every one can pause with its memory. There is no class to choose.
- Setup by the agent. An agent runs
npx withruntime run --trial -- ..., shows you a link, and starts work once you approve it in the browser. No API key is copied into a prompt or a config file, and the MCP server reuses the same connection. - Safe retries. Every write takes an idempotency key, and the SDKs retry with one automatically, so a lost response does not create a second sandbox.
Moving from Daytona
Daytona:
JavaScriptimport { Daytona } from "@daytonaio/sdk";const daytona = new Daytona();const sandbox = await daytona.create();const response = await sandbox.process.executeCommand("python3 -c 'print(6 * 7)'");await sandbox.delete();Runtime:
TypeScriptimport { Sandbox } from "withruntime";const box = await Sandbox.create({ funding: "trial" });try { console.log((await box.exec("python3 -c 'print(6 * 7)'", { check: true })).stdout);} finally { await box.stop();}To have a coding agent make the switch, test it and compare costs on your own workload, give it the prompt in migration. Keep Daytona available until the same job passes on both.