Vercel Sandbox
Isolated, ephemeral Linux microVMs for safely running untrusted or AI-generated code.
- Card required
- No
Vercel Sandbox scores 4.4/10 for free value in Functions. The main constraint: Hobby includes 5 Active CPU hours, 5,000 sandbox creations, 20 GB data transfer, and 420 GB-hours of memory per month, plus 15 GB lifetime snapshot storage.
Free value score
4.4 / 10Show the math
Key metrics
What you get
Firecracker microVM isolation with full root/sudo, Docker, VPN and FUSE support
Millisecond startup with Node and Python runtimes, persistent state on stop/resume
Generous 5,000 free sandbox creations per month on the Hobby tier
JS, Python SDKs and a CLI for programmatic create/run/file workflows
Gotchas
- 5,000 creations/mo
Up to 5,000 Sandbox.create() calls per billing cycle; resets each month.
- 5 Active CPU hrs/mo
5 hours of active CPU time per month (I/O wait is not counted); resets each cycle.
- 420 GB-hrs memory/mo
420 GB-hours of provisioned memory per month; resets each cycle.
- 20 GB transfer/mo
20 GB of inbound/outbound sandbox data transfer per month.
- 15 GB storage (lifetime)
15 GB snapshot storage as a one-time lifetime cap, not a renewable monthly quota.
- 45 min max runtime
A single sandbox can run for at most 45 minutes on Hobby (Pro/Enterprise allow 5 hours).
- 10 concurrent
At most 10 sandboxes can run concurrently on Hobby.
- 4 vCPU / 8 GB max
Each Hobby sandbox is capped at 4 vCPUs and 8 GB memory (Pro 8/16, Enterprise 32/64).
- 40 vCPU/10 min
vCPU allocation is rate-limited to 40 vCPUs per 10 minutes; control plane capped at 1,000 requests/minute.
- Creation pauses at cap
Once any included limit is exceeded, sandbox creation is paused until 30 days have passed since first use (cycle reset); upgrade to Pro to continue.
- iad1 region only
Vercel Sandbox is currently available only in the iad1 (US East) region.
- Personal/noncom
The Hobby plan is intended for personal, noncom use; commercial workloads require Pro or Enterprise.
Sources
-
"Sandbox Active CPU 5 hours/month ... Sandbox Provisioned Memory 420 GB-hours/month ... Sandbox Creations 5,000/month ... Sandbox Data Transfer 20 GB/month ... Sandbox Storage 15 GB (lifetime)"
https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/pricing -
"Once you exceed the limits, sandbox creation is paused until 30 days have passed since you first used the feature. To continue using Sandbox after exceeding your limits, upgrade to Pro."
https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/pricing -
"Hobby | 40 vCPUs per 10 minutes | 1,000 requests per minute"
https://vercel.com/docs/sandbox/pricing -
"Vercel Sandboxes are now generally available, providing an ephemeral compute primitive for safely executing untrusted code. ... Sandboxes are in production use by teams including v0, Blackbox AI and RooCode."
https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-sandboxes-ga
