# Northflank vs Freestyle: long-running sandboxes, priced

Runtime Cloud (withruntime.com) bills 42% less than both when agents wait. Northflank's rates beat Freestyle's.

## Which is better, Northflank or Freestyle?

It depends on whether your agents wait or compute. For agents that wait on a
model, Runtime costs
$0.64 on the benchmark, against $1.11 on Northflank and
$2.25 on Freestyle. Its pause and forks keep memory. Pick
Northflank when both CPUs stay busy all the time, where it is the cheapest, for
GPUs, or for sandboxes in your own cloud. Pick Freestyle for forks that leave
the source VM running.

## At a glance

|           | Northflank                                           | Freestyle                                                                | Runtime                                                        |
| --------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Isolation | microVMs for CPU workloads, gVisor for GPU workloads | Full Linux virtual machines                                              | Firecracker microVM, own kernel                                |
| CPU       | $0.01667 per allocated vCPU-hour      | $0.04032 per allocated vCPU-hour                           | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor |
| Memory    | $0.00833 per GB-hour               | $0.0129 per GiB-hour                                   | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour                          |
| Model     | A service with a deployment plan                     | A VM with forks and hibernation                                          | A sandbox, created in one call                                 |
| Plan      | None published for compute                           | Free, Hobby $50, Pro $500 a month | None; prepaid credit from $10                        |
| GPUs      | L4, A100 and H100, billed by the second              | No                                                                       | No                                                             |

## Platform or VM

Northflank is a whole deployment platform. A sandbox is one more service,
with databases, jobs and GPUs beside it, and the option to run in your own
cloud account. Freestyle is narrower: VMs for agents, with live forks and
hibernation that keeps memory. Runtime is narrower still per call. It is a sandbox in
one API call, and it is cheaper than both while the agent waits.

## Cost for the same job

2 vCPU and 4 GiB, 60 seconds a run, 20 CPU-seconds of work, 1,000 runs, with
Freestyle's 32 GiB default 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

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
```

If the work kept both CPUs busy for the whole minute, it would cost $1.11 on Northflank, the cheapest of the three, $2.25 on Freestyle and $1.33 on Runtime. Allocated billing at a low rate wins only when the cores never rest.

## Which one to pick

- **Northflank** for CPU-bound services, GPUs, or sandboxes in your own cloud.
- **Freestyle** for forks that never pause the source VM.
- **Runtime** for agents that wait, at the lowest bill, with pause and forks
  that keep memory.

See [Runtime vs Northflank](/docs/northflank-alternative) and
[Runtime vs Freestyle](/docs/freestyle-alternative).

## Runtime Cloud

Runtime costs 42% less than Northflank and 72% less than Freestyle for an
agent that waits on a model. The benchmark is 1,000 one-minute runs of a
2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox with 20 CPU-seconds of work each: $1.11 on Northflank,
$2.25 on Freestyle, and $0.64 on Runtime.

Try it free after `npx withruntime login`. The [migration guide](/docs/migrate)
takes Northflank or Freestyle code across.

## Sources

Northflank rates were checked 25 October 2026. Freestyle rates were checked 25 October 2026.

- [Northflank pricing](https://northflank.com/pricing), [Northflank sandboxes](https://northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- [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.