OpenAI Containers vs E2B

OpenAI's hosted containers give models in the Responses API a sandboxed VM for Python and shell, in 1, 4, 16 or 64 GB sizes, created automatically or through the Containers API. For agents built on OpenAI models. OpenAI Containers does not publish comparable vCPU and memory rates, so no hourly price is compared; E2B lists $0.166 an hour for a 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox.

apicode-interpreterllm-apimanagedopenai

Verified 11 Nov 2026

Visit OpenAI Containers Compare with E2B and others

OpenAI Containers against E2B, line by line

E2B baseline sources

Field	-E2B (baseline)	+OpenAI Containers	Change
2 vCPU + 4 GiB, per hour	$0.166 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
vCPU, per hour	$0.0504 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
Memory, per GiB-hour	$0.0162 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
Billed on	wall clock (source: E2B Pricing)	wall clock (source: OpenAI API Pricing)	same
Isolation	Firecracker microVM (source: E2B homepage)	VM (source: OpenAI Code Interpreter guide)	differs
Max session	1 h (Hobby), 24 h (Pro) (source: E2B Pricing)	Expires after 20 minutes without use (source: OpenAI Code Interpreter guide)	differs
Persistence	state kept, pause/resume, memory kept, fork (source: E2B homepage)	No persistence (source: OpenAI Code Interpreter guide)	differs
Self-host	Yes, Apache-2.0 (source: E2B runtime (GitHub))	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
Your own cloud (BYOC)	Yes (source: E2B homepage)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
GPU	No (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
SDKs	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript (source: E2B Pricing)	OpenAI API (Responses + Containers API); runs Python (source: OpenAI Code Interpreter guide)	differs
SOC 2	Type II (source: E2B homepage)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure
Free tier	Hobby: $0 plan fee, one-time $100 usage credit, 10 concurrent sandboxes, 1-hour sessions. (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	OpenAI Containers: no figure

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 OpenAI Containers instead of E2B when

you only need code execution inside a model API: OpenAI Containers comes with the API you already call, with no separate sandbox vendor.

Stay on E2B when

pause has to keep running memory as well as files: E2B's pause saves both, and OpenAI Containers does not state memory state in our data.
you need a SOC 2 report: E2B states Type II, and OpenAI Containers states none in our data.
you want managed cloud, your own cloud account and self-hosting from one vendor: E2B offers all three, with BYOC on its Enterprise plan.

All OpenAI Containers facts

Source per value

Isolation Isolation technology the vendor states for each sandbox.: VM 2
Other isolation options Alternative runtimes the vendor offers besides the default (e.g. VM runtime, gVisor for GPU).: Not published
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.: Not published
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.: Not published
Sandbox from $/sandbox-hr Smallest published per-sandbox hourly price, where the vendor publishes one.: $0.09 1
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.: Not published
Free tier detail What the free tier or credit includes, as published.: Not published
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.: Not published
Max session length Longest single sandbox session by plan, as published.: Expires after 20 minutes without use 2
Persistence / snapshots Filesystem state can be kept between runs (snapshots, persistent disks, volumes).: No 2
Pause / resume A sandbox can be paused, suspended, hibernated or put in standby and resumed later.: No 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.: Not published
Self-host Can run on your own hardware or cluster (open source or licensed).: Not published
BYOC / VPC Vendor-managed deployment inside your own cloud account.: Not published
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).: OpenAI API (Responses + Containers API); runs Python 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.: Not published
Max memory per sandbox GiB Largest published memory per sandbox.: 64 2
Concurrency Published concurrent sandbox limits by plan.: Not published
SOC 2 SOC 2 status as stated by the vendor.: Not published
HIPAA Vendor offers HIPAA-compliant usage/BAA (on any plan).: Not published
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.: Not published
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.: Not published
Status Preview, experimental, beta, sunset or self-hosting caveats the vendor documents.: Not published

Pricing model: usage
From: $0.09 container-hour (1 GB)
Pricing note: $0.03 (1 GB), $0.12 (4 GB), $0.48 (16 GB), $1.92 (64 GB) per 20-minute session per container, so $0.09/h for 1 GB; eligible sessions bill by the minute with a 5-minute minimum. Model tokens billed separately. Pricing checked 2026-11-09.

Sources

OpenAI API Pricing accessed 2026-11-09
OpenAI Code Interpreter guide accessed 2026-11-09

OpenAI Containers in the E2B comparisons

E2B alternatives with microVM or VM isolationWhich E2B alternatives give each sandbox its own kernel? 26 listed.

Compare with other E2B alternatives

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