# Fly Machines vs Freestyle: VM pricing for agents

Runtime Cloud (withruntime.com) costs $0.64 to Fly's $1.53 and Freestyle's $2.25. One bills by size, and one bills by allocation.

## Which is better, Fly Machines or Freestyle?

It depends on how busy your agent is and what must sit around it. For an agent that mostly waits on a model, Runtime costs the least: $0.64 for 1,000 one-minute runs, against $1.53 on Fly Machines and $2.25 on Freestyle. It bills the CPU used, not the cores held. Its pause keeps memory at any size up to 64 GiB. Pick Fly Machines for apps across 17 regions, with Fly's volumes and Postgres. Pick Freestyle for forks of a running VM with no pause.

## At a glance

|           | Fly Machines                                                          | Freestyle                             | Runtime                                           |
| --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM                                                   | Full Linux virtual machines           | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                   |
| Price     | `performance-2x` with 4 GB, $0.0916704 an hour, `iad` | $0.1322 an hour for 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB | $0.03125 an hour waiting, $0.08 busy |
| Disk      | Temporary root disk; volumes keep files                               | 32 GiB by default, billed             | Included while it runs                            |
| Idle      | Suspend at 2 GB of memory or less                                     | Hibernates with memory                | Pause keeps memory while you have credit          |
| Regions   | 17                                                                    | Not stated                            | One US region                                     |

## Whole cores or hibernation

Fly's performance vCPUs are whole cores, and the Machine is still the cheaper
of the two rivals. What Freestyle offers in return is state: VMs that
hibernate with memory at any size and fork while running. A Fly Machine
suspends with memory only at 2 GB or less, and its root disk does not
outlive it.

## Cost for the same job

2 vCPU and 4 GB, 60 seconds, 20 CPU-seconds, 1,000 runs. Freestyle's default
32 GiB disk is counted:

```
Machines   Size   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × $0.0916704                = $1.53

Freestyle  CPU    1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.04032           = $1.34
           Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0129            = $0.86
           Disk   1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 32 × $0.000086         = $0.05
           Total                                                  $2.25

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
```

Both rivals bill by allocation, so with both CPUs busy for the whole minute, the job costs $1.53 on Machines, $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.33 on Runtime.

## Which one to pick

- **Fly Machines** for apps across 17 regions, with Fly's volumes and Postgres.
- **Freestyle** for forks of a running VM with no pause.
- **Runtime** for the lowest cost, with memory kept across pauses at any
  size up to 64 GiB.

See [Runtime vs Fly.io](/docs/fly-alternative) and
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative).

## Runtime Cloud

Runtime costs less than both: 58% less than Fly Machines and 72% less than
Freestyle. One thousand one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox using 20
CPU-seconds each cost $1.53 on a `performance-2x` Fly Machine, $2.25 on
Freestyle and $0.64 on Runtime.

Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM, and there is no plan fee. Sign in with `npx withruntime login` to start on the free usage. See the [migration guide](/docs/migrate) to bring existing code over.

## Sources

Fly.io prices checked 25 October 2026.

Fly Machines rates checked 25 October 2026; Freestyle rates checked 25 October 2026.

- [Fly.io pricing](https://fly.io/pricing/)
- [Freestyle pricing](https://www.freestyle.sh/pricing), [Freestyle VM pricing and limits](https://www.freestyle.sh/docs/vms/pricing-and-limits)
- Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing)

Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.