Northflank vs E2B

Northflank runs each sandbox in its own Cloud Hypervisor microVM (gVisor for GPU), on Northflank's cloud or inside your own AWS, GCP, Azure or Oracle account. For teams that want no runtime limit and BYOC. A 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox lists at $0.067 an hour on Northflank against $0.166 on E2B, 60% less.

byocgpulong-runningmanagedmicrovm

Verified 11 Nov 2026

Visit Northflank Compare with E2B and others

Northflank against E2B, line by line

E2B baseline sources

Field	-E2B (baseline)	+Northflank	Change
2 vCPU + 4 GiB, per hour	$0.166 (source: E2B Pricing)	$0.067 (source: Northflank Pricing)	−60%
vCPU, per hour	$0.0504 (source: E2B Pricing)	$0.0167 (source: Northflank Pricing)	−67%
Memory, per GiB-hour	$0.0162 (source: E2B Pricing)	$0.0083 (source: Northflank Pricing)	−49%
Billed on	wall clock (source: E2B Pricing)	wall clock (source: Northflank Pricing)	same
Isolation	Firecracker microVM (source: E2B homepage)	Cloud Hypervisor microVM (source: Northflank Sandboxes)	differs
Max session	1 h (Hobby), 24 h (Pro) (source: E2B Pricing)	No time limit (runs until deleted) (source: Northflank Sandboxes)	differs
Persistence	state kept, pause/resume, memory kept, fork (source: E2B homepage)	state kept, pause/resume (source: Northflank Pricing)	differs
Self-host	Yes, Apache-2.0 (source: E2B runtime (GitHub))	Yes (source: Northflank Sandboxes)	differs
Your own cloud (BYOC)	Yes (source: E2B homepage)	Yes (source: Northflank Pricing)	same
GPU	No (source: E2B Pricing)	Yes (source: Northflank Sandboxes)	differs
SDKs	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript (source: E2B Pricing)	REST API, CLI (source: Northflank Sandboxes)	differs
SOC 2	Type II (source: E2B homepage)	Type II (source: Northflank Security)	same
Free tier	Hobby: $0 plan fee, one-time $100 usage credit, 10 concurrent sandboxes, 1-hour sessions. (source: E2B Pricing)	Free Sandbox plan: up to $20/month of resources on Northflank Cloud, no card. (source: Northflank Pricing)	differs

Prices are list prices for one hour of a 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox: 2 × the vCPU rate + 4 × the memory rate. Each value links to the page it came from; not published means the vendor states no figure. How we compare.

Pick Northflank instead of E2B when

your bill is the problem: the same 2 vCPU / 4 GiB box lists at $0.067 an hour here against $0.166 on E2B, 60% less.
you need GPUs: Northflank documents GPU sandboxes, and E2B lists CPU-only sandboxes.
your agents run longer than E2B's 24-hour Pro session cap: No time limit (runs until deleted).
you are prototyping: Free Sandbox plan: up to $20/month of resources on Northflank Cloud, no card.

Stay on E2B when

pause has to keep running memory as well as files: E2B's pause saves both, and Northflank does not state memory state in our data.

All Northflank facts

Source per value

Isolation Isolation technology the vendor states for each sandbox.: Cloud Hypervisor microVM 2
Other isolation options Alternative runtimes the vendor offers besides the default (e.g. VM runtime, gVisor for GPU).: gVisor for GPU sandboxes 2
Deployment Managed cloud service, self-hosted software, or both.: managed 1
Billing basis What the meter counts: wall-clock allocated resources, active CPU only, requests/plan quota, session-hours, or free software.: wall clock 1
vCPU price $/vCPU-hr Published on-demand CPU rate normalised to USD per vCPU-hour (per-second rates multiplied by 3,600; per-core rates divided by vCPUs per core where the vendor defines it). Lowest public tier, default region. 0 means the vendor states no separate CPU charge.: $0.0167 1
Memory price $/GiB-hr Published memory rate normalised to USD per GiB-hour (GB treated as GiB where the vendor does not distinguish). 0 means the vendor states memory is free.: $0.0083 1
Sandbox from $/sandbox-hr Smallest published per-sandbox hourly price, where the vendor publishes one.: Not published
Paid plan from $/mo Cheapest paid platform plan fee (before usage).: Not published
Free tier A free plan, free monthly allowance or sign-up credit exists.: Yes 1
Free tier detail What the free tier or credit includes, as published.: Free Sandbox plan: up to $20/month of resources on Northflank Cloud, no card. 1
Cold start ms Vendor-published create/boot time in milliseconds (a vendor claim, not our benchmark). Only filled when the vendor publishes a number; see startup_claim for percentile and conditions.: Not published
Resume time ms Vendor-published resume-from-pause/standby/snapshot time in milliseconds.: Not published
Startup claim The vendor's startup/resume wording with conditions, quoted or closely paraphrased.: "Cold start < 1s"; example cached image ready in 0.8 s 2
Max session length Longest single sandbox session by plan, as published.: No time limit (runs until deleted) 2
Persistence / snapshots Filesystem state can be kept between runs (snapshots, persistent disks, volumes).: Yes 1
Pause / resume A sandbox can be paused, suspended, hibernated or put in standby and resumed later.: Yes 2
Memory state kept Pause/hibernate preserves running memory state, not only the filesystem.: Not published
Fork / branch A running or snapshotted sandbox can be cloned into new sandboxes.: Not published
GPU GPU sandboxes are offered.: Yes 2
Self-host Can run on your own hardware or cluster (open source or licensed).: Yes 2
BYOC / VPC Vendor-managed deployment inside your own cloud account.: Yes 1
Open source Core sandbox runtime is published under an open-source licence.: Not published
Licence Open-source licence of the runtime, if any.: Not published
SDKs / languages Official SDK languages (or supported execution languages where noted).: REST API, CLI 2
Regions Published regions or region count.: Not published
Max vCPU per sandbox vCPU Largest published vCPU count per sandbox on any self-serve or enterprise plan.: 288 2
Max memory per sandbox GiB Largest published memory per sandbox.: 2,048 2
Concurrency Published concurrent sandbox limits by plan.: Not published
SOC 2 SOC 2 status as stated by the vendor.: Type II 3
HIPAA Vendor offers HIPAA-compliant usage/BAA (on any plan).: Yes 3
2 vCPU + 4 GiB per hour $/hr Hourly list price of one 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox: 2 x the vCPU rate + 4 x the memory rate, from the two published rates. Left empty for self-hosted software and for vendors without both rates. Vendors that bill CPU only while busy (Vercel, Cloudflare, Upstash, Tensorlake, AWS AgentCore) cost less for idle agents than this shows.: $0.0667 1
Price vs E2B x E2B The 2 vCPU + 4 GiB hourly price divided by E2B's own ($0.1656 at $0.000014/vCPU-s and $0.0000045/GiB-s). Under 1 is cheaper than E2B.: 0.4 1
Status Preview, experimental, beta, sunset or self-hosting caveats the vendor documents.: Not published

Pricing model: usage
From: $0.0167 vCPU-hour
Pricing note: Northflank Cloud $0.01667/vCPU-h, $0.00833/GB-h; BYOC $0.02083 per managed vCPU-h plus your cloud bill; GPUs from $0.80/h (L4). Pricing checked 2026-11-09.

Sources

Northflank Pricing accessed 2026-11-09
Northflank Sandboxes accessed 2026-11-09
Northflank Security accessed 2026-11-09

Northflank in the E2B comparisons

E2B alternatives cheaper than E2BWhich sandboxes cost less than E2B for the same box? 10 listed.
Self-hosted E2B alternativesWhich E2B alternatives can I run on my own hardware or cluster? 9 listed.
E2B alternatives with GPU sandboxesWhich E2B alternatives offer GPU sandboxes? 7 listed.
E2B alternatives with microVM or VM isolationWhich E2B alternatives give each sandbox its own kernel? 26 listed.

Compare with other E2B alternatives

All 41

Beam vs E2B $0.140/hr, 0.85x E2B, container
Alibaba Cloud vs E2B $0.071/hr, 0.43x E2B, VM
Prime Intellect vs E2B $0.090/hr, 0.54x E2B, microVM
Freestyle vs E2B $0.132/hr, 0.8x E2B, VM
Together Code vs E2B $0.149/hr, 0.9x E2B, microVM

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