Google Agent Runtime vs smol machines
Google Agent Runtime hosts your agent code on Google Cloud and gives it sandboxes that run as an unprivileged user in a locked container. smol machines gives each agent its own microVM with its own kernel and Docker inside, built on an open-source engine you can also run on your own laptop or servers.
The companies and products
Google Agent Runtime
Google Agent Runtime is the agent hosting part of Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on Google Cloud, renamed from Vertex AI Agent Engine in April 2026.
It is a hyperscaler service, not a sandbox company. Agent Runtime deploys agents you build with ADK, LangGraph, LangChain, AG2 or LlamaIndex and bills them only while they work on a turn. Next to it, Agent Sandbox gives those agents a place to run code: a Code Execution sandbox, a shell or custom container sandbox, and a Computer Use browser. All of them run as secure containers inside your Google Cloud project.
smol machines
smol machines makes fast, isolated Linux microVMs that run the same way on your laptop, in their hosted cloud, or on your own servers.
The core is smolvm, an open-source microVM engine built on libkrun, where each machine has its own guest kernel. smol cloud is the paid hosted service that runs fleets of those machines behind a REST API and Node, Python and Rust SDKs. It is built for developers who want one VM model from local development to production, with live branching of running machines.
- Uptime SLA
- 99.95% on Pro, Startup and Enterprise
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “28th cheapest of 366” means 27 of the other 365 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Google Agent Runtime: price rank | smol machines: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month smol machines runs Docker inside each microVM while Google's sandboxes have no root or Docker; boat adds /dev/kvm, SSH and coding agents on top of Docker. | 295th of 367, with limits $5,801 a month | 73rd of 367, with limits $604 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Google hosts the agent loop and bills only working turns, but a sandbox is deleted when its TTL ends; smol machines has no lifetime cap, and boat adds a desktop and a credentials proxy. | 28th cheapest of 366 $7,519 a month | 148th of 366, with limits $1,038 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month Both fit short code runs: Google has a ready Python interpreter with no network, and smol machines has a one-minute minimum and a /code endpoint for Python and JavaScript. | 254th of 345, with limits $275 a month | 12th cheapest of 345 $140 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month smol machines wakes a stopped machine on the next command, while Google sandboxes are reached only through its API or your VPC; boat gives each user HTTPS on up to 50 ports. | 280th of 361, with limits $1,916 a month | 7th cheapest of 361 $531 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month Both can branch a sandbox with its memory, so many rollouts start from one prepared state; smol machines does it from a running machine. | 128th of 360, with limits $8,240 a month | 111th of 360, with limits $6,978 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 79th cheapest of 364 $2,060 a month | 36th cheapest of 364 $670 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month CI jobs that build containers need Docker, which smol machines has and Google's unprivileged sandboxes do not; boat runs Docker and systemd on every VM. | 98th cheapest of 377 $989 a month | 66th cheapest of 377 $514 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Neither offers SSH into a sandbox, so neither works well as a dev box you log into; boat gives you SSH and a desktop. | 311th of 368, with limits $241 a month | 216th of 368, with limits $29 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Google gives you a ready browser with a VNC view and a click and type API, smol machines leaves you to run your own Chromium, and boat streams a full 60fps desktop. | 283rd of 369, with limits $1,648 a month | 90th of 369, with limits $156 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 102nd of 367, with limits $824 a month | 176th of 367, with limits $136 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 53rd cheapest of 346 $515 a month | 241st of 346, with limits $242 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 210th of 338, with limits $8,240 a month | 148th of 338, with limits $4,344 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 260th of 360, with limits $412 a month | 252nd of 360, with limits $377 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Google Agent Runtime | smol machines | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Secure container sandboxing inside your Google Cloud project | libkrun microVM with its own guest kernel | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Root and Docker | Runs as appuser with no sudo; images must not need root; no Docker documented | Docker runs inside the VM, with its data on the machine's ext4 disk | Root, systemd and Docker on every machine |
| Nested virtualization | No /dev/kvm documented | Not exposed in the cloud create API; a local smolvm flag only | Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Shell access | execute_bash() API calls; each command runs in a new shell; no SSH | Command API, sessions and a WebSocket terminal capped at one hour per connection; no SSH | SSH, plus a command API and terminal |
| How long a sandbox lives | TTL of up to 7 days for a custom container and 14 days for Code Execution | No provider cap; an optional TTL you set yourself | No session cap on paid plans |
| Files after a stop | Pause keeps the file system and costs less (rate not published); deleted when the TTL ends | Filesystem survives a stop, memory paths like /tmp are emptied; stopped disk keeps billing | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Branching with memory | Snapshots keep memory and files; start many sandboxes from one snapshot | Branch a running machine with its memory and processes; checkpoints capture RAM to a file | Fork a running sandbox with its disk; the fork boots fresh |
| Reaching the sandbox | Through Google's API or a private endpoint in your VPC; no public URL documented | Up to 16 published ports through a returned URL or an authenticated connect route | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6 |
| Outbound internet | Off unless the template turns it on; can route through your VPC with Cloud NAT, a static IP or a firewall | Blocked, open, or an allowlist of hosts and CIDR ranges | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| Desktop and browser | A browser in a container with a VNC live view, a click and type API and CDP | No hosted desktop; a guide shows running your own Chromium | Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, Chromium and computer use built in |
| Coding agents | Managed Agents API (Preview) runs Google's Antigravity harness | Registry images with the Codex CLI and the Harbor eval harness, run through the command API | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | You provision and scope the credentials the agent uses | Cloud secrets are environment variables the guest can read | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch to another account when credits run out |
| Hosting your agent code | Deploys ADK, LangGraph, LangChain, AG2 and LlamaIndex agents; idle time between turns is not billed | No managed agent hosting; you run your loop in a machine | You run your own agent loop inside a sandbox |
| Where it runs | 23 Google Cloud locations in the US, Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia and Brazil | No region choice in the cloud API; open-source smolvm runs on your own laptop or servers | EU only: Germany, Finland, France, with EU data residency |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Google Agent Runtime | smol machines | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | No | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | No | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | Yes | Yes | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | Yes | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | Yes | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | No | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for Google Agent Runtime or smol machines: neither has been run on the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks CPU test. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second on that test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. smol machines publishes a boot time under 200ms for smolvm, which is a start-time figure, not CPU speed.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Google Agent Runtime and smol machines have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Google Agent Runtime, a month | smol machines, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $73 · Pay as you go | $25 · Standard | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $301 · Pay as you go | $93 · Standard | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $3,626 · Pay as you go · with limits | $1,139 · Pro | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $1,030 · Pay as you go | $465 · Startup | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $2,060 · Pay as you go | $1,389 · Startup | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Google Agent Runtime: Google bills $0.085 per vCPU-hour and $0.009 per GiB-hour for what you allocate, with the first 50 vCPU-hours and 100 GiB-hours free each month. Sandboxes bill while they exist, and disk, egress and paused rates are not published.
smol machines: smol cloud charges a base fee for every hour a machine runs plus the CPU and memory the guest actually uses, with a one-minute minimum and disk billed even while stopped. Pro ($20 a month) and Startup ($150 a month) are fees on top of usage, not credit.
smol machines: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit spent per second while a sandbox runs. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
On Google, the 50-agent fleet does not fit because its sandboxes have no Docker inside, and every Google row leaves disk and egress unpriced because those rates are not published. A Google sandbox is also deleted when its TTL ends, 7 days at most for a custom container. smol machines caps machines by plan, 20 on Standard, 100 on Pro and 1,000 on Startup, with stopped machines still holding a slot, so the fleet needs Pro and the 1,000-job burst needs Startup. On boat the burst is the problem: the $2,000 plan queues starts above 90 a minute.
| Scenario | Google Agent Runtime | smol machines | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
| None that bite |
|
Which one should you use?
Use Google Agent Runtime when
you build agents with ADK or LangGraph on Google Cloud and want them hosted inside your own project, network rules and regions, with short code runs in a locked sandbox.
- A managed home for your agent code. Useful if you build agents with ADK or LangGraph: Agent Runtime hosts them and skips billing for idle time between turns.
- Inside your Google Cloud network. Useful if agents must stay in a Google Cloud perimeter, with egress off by default and routed through your own firewall.
- A ready browser and worldwide regions. Useful if you want a browser sandbox with a click and type API, running in the US, Europe or Asia.
Use smol machines when
you want each agent in its own microVM with Docker, live branches of a running machine with its memory, or one open-source engine from your laptop to your own servers.
- A real VM with Docker inside. Useful if your agents build containers or need their own kernel: each smol machine is a microVM that runs Docker.
- Live branches of a running machine. Useful for RL and test fan-out: branch a running machine with its memory and processes, paying the minimum once.
- Open source, from laptop to your servers. Teams that want the same VM locally, in a hosted cloud and on their own servers can run one open-source engine.
Where boat fits
If your agents need a whole computer rather than a place to run code, look at boat. Google locks its sandboxes in a container with no root, and smol machines gives you a VM but no SSH, desktop or nested virtualization. boat gives every agent a full VM with root, Docker, /dev/kvm, a desktop and coding agents built in.
Root, Docker and /dev/kvm on one machine
On Google, sudo apt install and docker compose fail because commands run as appuser. smol machines runs Docker but hides /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and nested VMs cannot start. boat has root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on every VM.
A desktop and public URLs for what agents build
Google's computer use is a browser only, reached through its API or your VPC, and smol machines has no hosted desktop and up to 16 ports. boat streams a 60fps desktop and serves HTTPS on up to 50 ports, with SSH and raw TCP.
Coding agents and keys handled for you
Google runs only its own Antigravity harness, and smol cloud puts secrets in environment variables the guest can read. boat ships Claude Code, Codex and more, driven from outside, with real keys kept out of the sandbox.
Use boat when your agents need a whole machine for real work: root, Docker, /dev/kvm, SSH, a desktop and public URLs on a full VM that keeps its disk, with coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Google Agent Runtime and boat vs smol machines.
Questions people ask
Is Google Agent Runtime cheaper than smol machines?
Not in the five scenarios we priced. One coding agent on workdays comes to $25 a month on smol machines and $73 on Google, and one agent running all month comes to $93 versus $301. Google's numbers assume a sandbox that exists all those hours; a Runtime agent that sits idle between turns bills less.
Which is faster, Google Agent Runtime or smol machines?
We have no comparable CPU measurement for either. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second on the StarSling CPU test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. smol machines publishes a smolvm boot time under 200ms, which measures start time, not CPU speed.
Can Google Agent Runtime or smol machines run Docker?
smol machines can: Docker runs inside each microVM, with its data on the machine's ext4 disk. Google's sandboxes run as the unprivileged user appuser with no sudo, so Docker is not available. boat runs Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on every VM.
Can I fork a running sandbox with its memory?
Both can. smol machines branches a running machine into children that keep its memory and processes, and Google can start many sandboxes from one snapshot that keeps memory and files. boat forks a running sandbox with its disk, and the fork boots fresh.
Can I self-host either one?
smol machines, yes: its smolvm engine is open source and runs on macOS, Linux and Windows hosts. Google Agent Runtime runs only on Google Cloud, inside your own project. boat is a hosted service in the EU.
Is boat SOC 2 compliant?
SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status at status.ascii.dev and our data retention policy at docs.boat.dev/data-retention.
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