Paperspace vs Baseten
Paperspace rents whole Linux VMs, with or without Nvidia GPUs, by the hour, and you log into them over SSH. Baseten runs your models for you as containers on its GPUs that scale with traffic, billed per minute, with agent sandboxes in private preview.
The companies and products
Paperspace
Paperspace is a GPU cloud for machine learning, owned by DigitalOcean since 2023.
Paperspace Machines are full Linux VMs with a persistent disk, a public IP and optional Nvidia GPUs from M4000 up to H100, billed by the hour. Next to Machines it sells Gradient Notebooks, Deployments and Workflows for training and serving models. It is built for people who train, test and run models, not as a sandbox API: its API manages machines, and you work inside them over SSH.
- Operating systems
- Linux; Windows templates closed to new users since 1 July 2024
Baseten
Baseten is an inference cloud: it runs AI models on GPUs for production apps, and sells hosted open models and training.
You package a model with Truss, its open-source format, or bring a Docker image, and Baseten runs it as replicas on Kubernetes that scale up with traffic and down to zero. It also sells Model APIs (open models priced per token) and training jobs on the same GPUs. Sandboxes, isolated environments where an agent runs commands and works with files, are in private preview; this page compares boat with both the CPU instances and the sandbox preview.
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. “58th cheapest of 364” means 57 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 | Paperspace: price rank | Baseten: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A coding agent fits better on a Paperspace VM than in a Baseten container, but you set up each machine by hand over SSH; boat ranks 3rd with agents and Docker ready. | 141st of 367, with limits $1,261 a month | 216th of 367, with limits $2,619 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 179th of 366, with limits $1,560 a month | 242nd of 366, with limits $3,258 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 Short runs are costly on both: Paperspace bills a full hour per machine, and Baseten bills cold starts and, by default, 15 idle minutes before scaling down. | 179th of 345, with limits $1,451 a month | 319th of 345, with limits $1,856 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 is built to hand sandboxes to your users: Paperspace has no API to run code inside a machine, and Baseten's sandbox preview runs 10 per organization by default. | 124th of 361, with limits $1,243 a month | 277th of 361, with limits $1,868 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 | 193rd of 360, with limits $30,570 a month | 322nd of 360, with limits $31,140 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 Paperspace fits agent evals on its own VMs; Baseten is a compromise because its containers keep no disk, and boat ranks 10th with a full VM per eval. | 58th cheapest of 364 $1,241 a month | 297th of 364, with limits $1,609 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 Paperspace fits CI as a plain VM with Docker inside; Baseten's model containers run as a non-root user with no documented Docker, and boat starts runners per job with root and Docker. | 101st cheapest of 377 $1,026 a month | 320th of 377, with limits $1,119 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Paperspace fits a dev box that never stops, since its VM keeps a disk; Baseten's CPU instances lose their files when a replica stops, and boat fits at a lower monthly price. | 49th cheapest of 368 $63 a month | 170th of 368, with limits $130 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 has a Linux desktop for computer use: Paperspace streams desktops only on Windows machines that new users cannot create, and Baseten has no desktop API; boat streams a 60fps desktop. | 284th of 369, with limits $1,655 a month | 294th of 369, with limits $1,799 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 | 319th of 367, with limits $1,241 a month | 318th of 367, with limits $1,194 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 | 192nd of 346, with limits $112 a month | 220th of 346, with limits $183 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 | 92nd of 338, with limits $2,242 a month | 126th of 338, with limits $3,654 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 | 207th of 360, with limits $214 a month | 254th of 360, with limits $381 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 Both fit GPU eval jobs: Baseten ranks 24th and Paperspace ranks 30th here, and boat has no GPUs. | 30th cheapest of 98 $2,982 a month | 24th cheapest of 98 $1,625 a month | 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 | Paperspace | Baseten | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | GPU and CPU VM cloud for machine learning | Inference cloud for serving and training models; agent sandboxes in private preview | Sandbox cloud for agents: VMs you create, fork and drive from code |
| Isolation | Every machine is a full VM with its own kernel | Kubernetes containers in a dedicated namespace per customer | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| Root, Docker and nested virtualization | Docker runs inside; nested virtualization is not documented | Containers run as the non-root app user; Docker inside and /dev/kvm are not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| GPUs | Nvidia M4000 up to A100 and H100, up to 8 per machine; H100 needs approval | Nvidia T4 up to H200 and B200, up to 8 per instance, plus multi-node | None |
| Files after a stop | Disk is kept and billed while off; auto-snapshots at most hourly | Replicas start fresh from the image; preview sandboxes are deleted after 7 days by default | Snapshots every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Copying a machine | Custom templates from a machine that is turned off, same region only | No fork or clone; new replicas cold-start from the image | Fork a running sandbox in one call |
| Working inside from code | The API and CLI manage machines but cannot connect to them; you use SSH | You deploy a model and call its endpoint; preview sandboxes run commands through a CLI or MCP | API, SDK and CLI to run commands, move files and fork |
| Scale to zero and wake on request | No wake on request; machines can auto-shut down after a set time | Deployments scale to zero and start on the next request | No wake on request; you start a stopped sandbox through the API |
| Coding agents | None built in; ML templates such as ML-in-a-Box | Baseten Switch points Claude Code or Codex on your laptop at its Model APIs | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Desktop and computer use | Desktop streaming only on Windows machines, which new users cannot create | No desktop or computer-use API | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Reaching the machine | A public IPv4 on every Linux machine, any port; no managed HTTPS URLs | HTTPS API endpoint per deployment; SSH once enabled for your organization | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credentials proxy; Gradient secrets are injected as environment variables | Secrets are passed into the model as arguments or files under /secrets | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| Regions | New York, Amsterdam and Canada | US and EU for GPU deployments; your own AWS, GCP or OCI account on Enterprise | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
| Billing step | Per hour while on; disk and public IP bill while off | Per minute, including image builds and cold starts; no plan fee on Basic | Per second from a monthly plan that becomes usage credit |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Paperspace | Baseten | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Not published | No | Yes |
| Root | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | 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 | No | Yes | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Yes | No | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for Paperspace or Baseten: neither was part of the public StarSling benchmark run. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in that run, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Paperspace and Baseten 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 | Paperspace, a month | Baseten, 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 | $19 · Core usage | $34 · Basic · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $63 · Core usage | $136 · Basic · with limits | $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 | $804 · Core usage | $1,701 · Basic · with limits | $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 | $1,241 · Core usage | $1,246 · Basic · with limits | $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 | $8,274 · Core usage | $6,228 · Basic · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Paperspace: Paperspace bills each machine per hour while it is on, at a fixed rate per size (C5, 4 vCPU / 8 GB, is $0.08 an hour). The boot disk (from $5 a month for 50 GB) and the public IP keep billing until you delete the machine.
Baseten: Baseten bills per minute, rounding partial minutes up, from image build and cold start until the replica stops; a 4 vCPU / 16 GiB CPU instance is $0.00346 a minute. There is no plan fee on Basic, and sandbox preview pricing is not published.
Baseten: 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
Baseten's CPU instances are model containers with no persistent disk, so in every scenario files are lost when a replica stops, and the table marks them as not fitting. Paperspace fits every scenario, but bills by the hour, so a five-minute job costs a full hour: 1,000 short jobs at once come to $8,274 a month there against $6,228 on Baseten. Baseten's preview sandboxes run at most 10 per organization by default, and a monthly budget only sends alerts for dedicated deployments. On boat that burst is queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Paperspace | Baseten | 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 |
|
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Which one should you use?
Use Paperspace when
you want a whole GPU or CPU VM with a kept disk and a public IP that a person sets up and uses over SSH, including in New York or Canada.
- A whole VM you log into. Useful if a person works on the machine: Paperspace gives a full Linux VM with a kept disk and its own public IPv4.
- Big CPU machines. Useful for heavy single jobs: Paperspace CPU machines go up to 32 vCPU and 244 GB of memory.
- Machines in New York and Canada. Useful if you need North America outside the US too: Paperspace runs in New York, Canada and Amsterdam.
Use Baseten when
you serve or train models in production and want deployments that scale to zero, wake on request, and can run in your own cloud account.
- Models served for you. Useful if your product serves a model: Baseten runs it as replicas that scale with traffic, on GPUs up to B200.
- Scale to zero, wake on request. Useful for spiky traffic: Baseten deployments scale to zero when idle and start again on the next request.
- Your own cloud and egress allowlists. Useful for strict networks: on Enterprise Baseten can run in your own AWS, GCP or OCI account, with per-deployment allowlists.
Where boat fits
Paperspace and Baseten are GPU clouds, and boat has no GPUs, so keep model training and serving on one of them. If what you are really running is agents that write code, test it and use a browser, boat gives each one a full VM built for that, which neither of these is.
Driven from code, with agents inside
Paperspace's API cannot run commands inside a machine, so you build and keep your own SSH layer. Baseten runs models, not agents. boat has Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode inside, driven from outside by API.
Root and Docker in a VM that keeps its disk
Baseten's containers run as a non-root user and lose their files when they stop. Paperspace keeps the disk but snapshots at most hourly and bills it while off. boat snapshots every minute and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
Fork and a desktop for computer use
Copying a Paperspace machine means turning it off and making a template; Baseten has no fork. Neither has a Linux desktop. boat forks a running sandbox in one call and streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium.
Use boat when the work is agents rather than models: full VMs with root and Docker, coding agents and a desktop inside, snapshots every minute, and forks of a running sandbox. Compare it one to one: boat vs Paperspace and boat vs Baseten.
Questions people ask
Is Paperspace cheaper than Baseten?
For CPU work in the scenarios we priced, mostly yes: one agent that never stops is $63 a month on Paperspace and $136 on Baseten, and 50 agents in parallel are $804 versus $1,701. For 1,000 short jobs at once Baseten comes to $6,228 against $8,274, because Paperspace bills whole hours. On boat the same shapes cost $26 and $317.
Which is better for GPU work?
Both rent Nvidia GPUs up to 8 per machine. Baseten has newer cards such as H200 and B200 and scales model servers with traffic, while Paperspace gives you a whole VM with a GPU that you log into. In our GPU eval jobs table, Baseten ranks 24th and Paperspace 30th; boat has no GPUs.
Which is faster?
We have no comparable CPU measurement for either one: neither was in the public StarSling benchmark run. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in that run.
Can Paperspace or Baseten run Docker?
A Paperspace machine is a full VM, and Docker runs inside it. Baseten can run your own Docker image as a model server, but its containers run as a non-root user and Docker inside them is not documented. Every boat sandbox has root, Docker and /dev/kvm.
Does either have sandboxes for AI agents?
Baseten has agent sandboxes in private preview: access on request, 10 at once per organization by default, deleted after 7 days by default. Paperspace has none; it rents VMs that you reach over SSH. boat is a sandbox cloud for agents on every plan.
Where does my data run?
Paperspace runs in New York, Amsterdam and Canada. Baseten runs GPU deployments in the US or EU, and on Enterprise in your own cloud account. boat runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France).
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