Oracle Cloud vs Scaleway
Oracle Cloud is a worldwide cloud with GPUs, Windows, Mac and Arm machines, cheap burstable VMs and an Always Free tier. Scaleway is a European cloud in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan with simple hourly Instances; both rent plain VMs you set up yourself.
The companies and products
Oracle Cloud
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is Oracle's general-purpose cloud: compute, storage, networking, databases and AI services in regions around the world.
OCI Compute rents virtual machines and bare metal servers on x86 (AMD, Intel) and Arm (Ampere), plus GPU machines and Mac servers. You pick a shape, an OS image, a network and a disk, and then install and run everything inside the VM yourself. It is not a sandbox product, so this page compares the part that overlaps: running agent code on a VM.
Scaleway
Scaleway is a European cloud and AI provider, part of the iliad Group, that rents virtual machines, GPUs, storage and managed services.
Scaleway Instances are KVM virtual machines you pick from fixed shapes, from small shared-vCPU Development Instances to dedicated-vCPU and Arm64 types, running Linux or Windows Server. You get root, SSH, a public IP and security groups, and you install and run your own software next to Scaleway products like managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage and GPU Instances. It is general cloud infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
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. “Cheapest of 364” means no of the other 363 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 | Oracle Cloud: price rank | Scaleway: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month | 58th of 367, with limits $413 a month | 49th of 367, with limits $322 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 100th of 366, with limits $376 a month | 90th of 366, with limits $208 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 Oracle Cloud's burstable VMs rank 51st for short runs, while Scaleway ranks 166th because each one-minute run pays a full hour. | 51st of 345, with limits $16 a month | 166th of 345, with limits $893 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 Neither cloud has a sandbox API, so you build the per-user layer yourself; boat ranks 1st, Oracle Cloud 31st and Scaleway 84th. | 31st of 361, with limits $115 a month | 84th of 361, with limits $738 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 Oracle Cloud ranks 7th for big rollout fleets if your tenancy limits are raised; Scaleway's hourly billing pushes it to 176th. | 7th of 360, with limits $679 a month | 176th of 360, with limits $18,254 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 Oracle Cloud ranks 1st here on its cheap burstable VMs, Scaleway ranks 42nd, and boat ranks 10th with agents and snapshots ready. | Cheapest of 364 $136 a month | 42nd cheapest of 364 $776 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 Oracle Cloud ranks 6th and Scaleway 82nd, partly because Scaleway bills each job a full hour of uptime; boat ranks 4th. | 6th cheapest of 377 $102 a month | 82nd cheapest of 377 $777 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both fit a 24/7 dev box: Oracle Cloud ranks 2nd and can use its Always Free Arm allowance, Scaleway ranks 30th, boat ranks 18th. | 2nd cheapest of 368 $12 a month | 30th cheapest of 368 $41 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 Neither cloud has a desktop stream on its VMs, so you install and expose one yourself; boat streams a 60fps desktop with computer use. | 75th of 369, with limits $97 a month | 94th of 369, with limits $168 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 | 154th of 367, with limits $49 a month | 173rd of 367, with limits $126 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 | 150th of 346, with limits $32 a month | 149th of 346, with limits $13 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 Both are close here, with Scaleway ranking 34th and Oracle Cloud ranking 35th. | 35th of 338, with limits $642 a month | 34th of 338, with limits $253 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 | 102nd of 360, with limits $26 a month | 103rd of 360, with limits $29 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 | Oracle Cloud | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A plain cloud VM or bare metal server you set up yourself | A plain cloud VM (Instance) you set up yourself | A sandbox VM made for agents, created and driven by API |
| Isolation | Every VM has its own kernel on a KVM hypervisor; bare metal also available | Every Instance is a full QEMU/KVM VM with its own kernel | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root on every VM, Docker is yours to install; nested KVM documented on E5 and Standard3 Flex VMs, not on Ampere Arm | Root and Docker on Linux images; nested virtualization is not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm ready on every machine |
| Stopping | Stopping a standard VM pauses compute billing; the boot volume is billed until you delete it | Standby bills as running, and a shutdown inside the machine means standby; a console or API power-off stops compute, but volumes and IPs keep billing | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots | Backups by hand or on a schedule | Images and volume snapshots you create yourself; none automatic | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Make a custom image of the boot disk; imaging a running VM shuts it down for several minutes | Create an image from the Instance, then boot new Instances from it | Fork a running sandbox in one call while it keeps running |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 per VM and any port you open; HTTPS through your own server or a load balancer | Public IPv4 and IPv6 on any port; HTTPS needs your own proxy, certificates and DNS | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Desktop and computer use | None on Compute VMs; OCI Secure Desktops is a separate product | None built in; you install a desktop and browser yourself | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Coding agents | None preinstalled | None preinstalled; you install and drive agents yourself, for example over SSH | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | OCI Secret Management stores secrets the VM fetches, so the key ends up on it | Secret Manager stores secrets the machine fetches, so they end up on it | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Running many at once | Default or trial service limits per tenancy; more needs an approved limit increase | Quotas per shape, for example 10 DEV1-L or 15 DEV1-M after identity checks; more through support | 100 to 2,000 sandboxes at once by plan, self-serve |
| Network rules | Security lists and network security groups by IP range, protocol and port; domain filtering through OCI Network Firewall | Security groups with inbound and outbound rules by protocol, port and IP range; SMTP blocked by default | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs, Windows, macOS and Arm | Nvidia B200, H200, H100, A100 and AMD MI300X GPUs; Windows Server, Mac servers and Ampere Arm VMs | Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S GPUs billed per minute; Windows Server and Arm64 Instances; no macOS Instances | No GPUs; Linux x86 only, with Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | Regions across the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia, plus government clouds | EU only: Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Oracle Cloud | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | Yes | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | No | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Yes | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | No | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for Oracle Cloud or Scaleway: neither was part of StarSling's public sandbox benchmark run of 2026-09-29. In that run boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. On both clouds speed depends on the shape: Oracle's burstable VMs guarantee only 12.5% of each vCPU, and Scaleway sells shared-vCPU and dedicated-vCPU types.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Oracle Cloud and Scaleway 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 | Oracle Cloud, a month | Scaleway, 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 | $5 · Usage account · with limits | $14 · Usage account | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $15 · Usage account · with limits | $41 · Usage account | $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 | $203 · Usage account · with limits | $537 · Usage account | $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 | $49 · Usage account · with limits | $734 · Usage account | $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 | $97 · Usage account · with limits | $4,892 · Usage account | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Oracle Cloud: Oracle bills per OCPU hour (one x86 OCPU is two vCPUs) and per GB hour of memory while a VM runs, plus the boot disk until you delete it. The prices here use burstable E4 VMs billed at a 12.5% CPU baseline, so they are far below a full-speed VM.
Scaleway: Each Scaleway Instance shape has an hourly price, billed per hour of uptime including startup and standby, so a short job pays a full hour. Disks and public IPv4 bill on top and keep billing while an Instance is powered off.
Scaleway: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Every Oracle row is marked as not fitting because its prices come from burstable VMs that guarantee only an eighth of each vCPU, so a busy agent gets throttled. A new Oracle tenancy also starts with default or trial service limits, and Scaleway sets quotas per shape, such as 10 DEV1-L or 15 DEV1-M after identity checks, so 50 agents, 300 user sandboxes or 1,000 jobs at once need a request first on both. Scaleway's hourly billing makes the 1,000-job burst cost $4,892 a month. On boat that burst gets queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Oracle Cloud | Scaleway | 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 Oracle Cloud when
you need regions outside Europe, Mac servers, a wide choice of GPUs, or a free small Arm box, and you are ready to build the sandbox layer yourself.
- Regions everywhere. Useful if your machines must run outside Europe: Oracle Cloud has regions on every inhabited continent, plus government clouds.
- GPUs, Windows, Mac and Arm. Useful if agents need GPUs, Windows, macOS or Arm: Oracle Cloud rents all four, with Mac servers inside OCI Compute.
- A free always-on box. Useful for one small personal box: the Always Free tier covers a modest Arm VM every month, though idle ones may be reclaimed.
Use Scaleway when
you want a European cloud with simple hourly Instances, GPUs by the minute, and managed databases and Kubernetes in the same account.
- A European cloud. Useful if you want a European provider: Scaleway, part of the iliad Group, runs only in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan.
- Full-speed shapes at the table price. Useful for steady busy work: Scaleway's DEV1 shapes fit every scenario here, while Oracle's lower prices come from throttled burstable VMs.
- GPUs by the minute. Useful for short model jobs: Scaleway bills its Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S GPU Instances per minute.
Where boat fits
Oracle Cloud and Scaleway are general clouds, not agent sandboxes, so both hand you an empty VM and leave the agent layer to you. If what you are really running is agents, boat gives each one a full VM that already has Docker, /dev/kvm, coding agents, a desktop and snapshots every minute. Stay on either cloud for GPUs, Windows, macOS or regions boat does not cover.
Work saved every minute, free stops
On Oracle Cloud backups run by hand or on a schedule and the boot disk bills while stopped; on Scaleway an in-guest shutdown is standby, billed as running. boat saves the disk every minute and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
Agents and a desktop already inside
Neither cloud ships coding agents, a desktop stream or a way to prompt and watch an agent, and both secret managers put the key on the machine. boat has agents you drive from outside, a 60fps desktop and a credentials proxy.
Fork while running, fleets without a ticket
Imaging a running Oracle VM shuts it down for several minutes, and both clouds need a limit or quota request before 50 agents. boat forks a running sandbox in one call and runs 100 to 2,000 at once by plan.
Use boat when what you are really running is agents: full VMs with Docker, /dev/kvm, coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports, snapshots every minute and forks, without building that layer on raw cloud VMs. Compare it one to one: boat vs Oracle Cloud and boat vs Scaleway.
Questions people ask
Is Oracle Cloud cheaper than Scaleway?
On list price, yes: one coding agent on workdays comes to $5 a month on Oracle Cloud against $14 on Scaleway, and 50 agents in parallel to $203 against $537. But those Oracle prices use burstable VMs throttled above 12.5% of each vCPU, so they do not fit a busy agent, and full-speed shapes cost more. boat comes to $20 and $317 for the same two scenarios.
Which is faster, Oracle Cloud or Scaleway?
There is no comparable measurement for either: neither was in the public StarSling benchmark, where boat did 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Speed on both depends on the shape you pick, and Oracle's burstable VMs guarantee only 12.5% of each vCPU.
Can Oracle Cloud and Scaleway run Docker?
Yes, both give you root on a full VM, so you install Docker yourself. Oracle documents nested KVM on E5 and Standard3 Flex VMs but not on Ampere Arm, and Scaleway's docs do not cover nested virtualization. boat has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm ready on every machine.
Do I pay for a stopped VM?
On Oracle Cloud, stopping a standard VM pauses compute billing, but the boot volume bills until you delete it. On Scaleway, standby bills as running and a shutdown inside the machine means standby; a console or API power-off stops compute while volumes and IPs keep billing. On boat a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Where does my data run?
Oracle Cloud has regions across the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. Scaleway runs only in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France, with EU data residency.
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