Paperspace vs Hyperstack
Both are GPU clouds that rent full Linux VMs you reach over SSH. Paperspace, part of DigitalOcean, bills by the hour and stops compute billing when a machine is off; Hyperstack bills by the minute, rents newer GPUs up to B300, and keeps billing a stopped VM in full unless you hibernate it.
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
Hyperstack
Hyperstack is the GPU cloud of NexGen Cloud, a UK company founded in 2020: you rent GPU and CPU virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters and storage by the minute.
A Hyperstack VM is a full virtual machine with root and SSH, booted from an Ubuntu image (with or without Docker) and sized from a fixed list of flavors, from one RTX A4000 to 8-GPU B300 nodes, plus CPU-only flavors from 4 to 32 vCPUs. It also runs managed Kubernetes, volumes, object storage and an AI Studio inference API. It is built for teams that train, fine-tune and serve models, not as a sandbox API for agents, so this page compares the parts that overlap: VMs as machines for agent work.
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 | Hyperstack: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give a coding agent a real VM with Docker, but neither can run commands inside it from an API, so a fleet of coding agents is a compromise on both; boat fits fully. | 141st of 367, with limits $1,261 a month | 343rd of 367, with limits $11,458 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 | 337th of 366, with limits $12,775 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 | 179th of 345, with limits $1,451 a month | 172nd of 345, with limits $1,167 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 has a sandbox API for your users, and Hyperstack does not publish how many VMs can run at once, so 300 at once is not confirmed there. | 124th of 361, with limits $1,243 a month | 173rd of 361, with limits $4,207 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 RL rollouts are a compromise on both: Paperspace bills a full hour for each short run, and Hyperstack's limit on VMs at once is not published. | 193rd of 360, with limits $30,570 a month | 173rd of 360, with limits $17,500 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 and Hyperstack is a compromise there, with no desktop or browser for the agent; boat fits fully. | 58th cheapest of 364 $1,241 a month | 204th of 364, with limits $3,250 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 Both can host CI runners on full VMs; Hyperstack bills by the minute while Paperspace bills whole hours, and boat bills per second and stops for free. | 101st cheapest of 377 $1,026 a month | 122nd cheapest of 377 $1,560 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both fit a dev box that never stops; Paperspace's small CPU machines cost less, and boat costs less again with a disk saved every minute. | 49th cheapest of 368 $63 a month | 115th cheapest of 368 $475 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 gives a Linux machine a graphical desktop, so computer-use agents are a compromise on both; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium. | 284th of 369, with limits $1,655 a month | 332nd of 369, with limits $3,250 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 | 335th of 367, with limits $1,750 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 | 327th of 346, with limits $1,750 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 | 310th of 338, with limits $35,000 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 | 309th of 360, with limits $876 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, and Hyperstack ranks 2nd here with per-minute billing, while Paperspace ranks 30th; boat has no GPUs. | 30th cheapest of 98 $2,982 a month | 2nd cheapest of 98 $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 | Hyperstack | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | GPU and CPU VM cloud for machine learning, owned by DigitalOcean | GPU cloud from NexGen Cloud: GPU and CPU VMs, Kubernetes, storage and an inference API | Sandbox cloud for agents: VMs you create, fork and drive from code |
| Isolation | Every machine is a full VM with its own kernel | Full VMs with root, on flavors mapped 1:1 to physical resources | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| Docker inside | Docker runs inside; nested virtualization is not documented | Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 images with or without Docker | Docker, Docker Compose, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| GPUs | Nvidia M4000 up to A100 and H100 (H100 needs approval), up to 8 per machine | Nvidia RTX A4000 up to H100, H200, B200 and B300, on demand, spot or reserved | None |
| Billing step | Per hour while the machine is on | Per minute from a prepaid balance | Per second from a monthly plan's credit |
| Stopping a machine | Compute stops billing; the disk and public IP keep billing until you delete it | A SHUTOFF VM bills at the full rate; hibernation bills only disk and a kept IP, and a restore needs the flavor in stock | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its whole disk |
| Snapshots | Auto-snapshots at most hourly, up to 10 kept, plus on request | On request only, with the VM shut off, one at a time, up to 100 GB | The disk is snapshotted every minute and on stop, while the sandbox keeps running |
| Copying a machine | Custom templates from a machine that is turned off, same region only | Snapshot, make a custom image, then deploy a new VM | Fork a running sandbox in one call |
| Idle machines | Optional auto-shutdown after one hour to one week | VMs never stop on their own when idle | Stops are free, and the disk is saved on stop |
| Working inside from code | The API and CLI manage machines but cannot connect to them; you use SSH | API and a hosted MCP server manage VMs; you work inside over SSH | API, SDK and CLI to run commands, move files and fork, plus coding agents with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Desktop and computer use | Desktop streaming only on Windows machines, which new users cannot create | SSH and text console logs; no graphical desktop | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Reaching the machine | A public IPv4 on every Linux machine; no managed HTTPS URLs | A public IPv4 you can keep static; firewall rules close or open ports | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Largest CPU machine | C10: 32 vCPU / 244 GB | 32 vCPU / 64 GB (Canada) | 16 vCPU / 32 GB |
| Regions | New York, Amsterdam and Canada | Norway, Canada and the US (Texas) | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Paperspace | Hyperstack | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Not published | Yes | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | 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 | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Not published | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | 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 | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | 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 Hyperstack: 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 StarSling's run of 2026-09-29, 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 Hyperstack 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 | Hyperstack, 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 | $114 · Prepaid on-demand | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $63 · Core usage | $475 · Prepaid on-demand | $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 | $5,720 · Prepaid on-demand | $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 | $1,750 · Prepaid on-demand · 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 | $3,500 · Prepaid on-demand · 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, even when it is off.
Hyperstack: Hyperstack bills a running VM per minute from a prepaid balance, at a fixed hourly price per flavor, with no charge for bandwidth. Its CPU-only flavors start at 4 vCPU / 4 GB, so the scenarios use an 8 vCPU / 8 GB flavor, and a stopped VM bills in full until you hibernate it.
Hyperstack: 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 whole disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Paperspace bills by the hour, so a 10-minute user sandbox or a 3-minute job is billed as a full hour, which is why those scenarios cost far more there. Hyperstack bills by the minute but does not publish how many VMs can run at once, so 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 jobs at once are not confirmed; its API allows 500 requests a minute per IP. Paperspace also publishes no machine count limit, and raises team limits by support ticket. On boat the 1,000-job burst is queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Paperspace | Hyperstack | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| One agent that never stops | None that bite | 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 Paperspace when
you need older or mid-range GPUs by the hour, very large CPU machines, or machines in New York or Amsterdam that are cheap to leave switched off.
- Stopped machines stop compute billing. Useful if machines sit idle: an off Paperspace machine bills only its disk and IP, and auto-shutdown can turn it off.
- Very large CPU machines. Useful for heavy single jobs that need memory: the C10 machine has 32 vCPU and 244 GB.
- Small CPU machines at a low rate. Useful for one dev box or agent on CPU: a C5 with 4 vCPU and 8 GB is $0.08 an hour.
Use Hyperstack when
you need the newest Nvidia GPUs such as H200, B200 or B300, per-minute billing for GPU jobs, firewall rules, or managed Kubernetes.
- Newer GPUs up to 8-GPU B300 nodes. Useful if you train or serve large models: Hyperstack rents H200, B200 and B300 as well as H100, with spot and reserved prices.
- Billing by the minute. Useful for short GPU jobs: you pay for the minutes a VM runs, not whole hours.
- Firewall rules and Kubernetes. Useful if you need to limit outbound traffic by IP and port, or run managed Kubernetes clusters.
Where boat fits
Paperspace and Hyperstack are GPU clouds, and boat has no GPUs, so GPU training and GPU evals belong on one of them. If what you are really running is agents that write and run code on CPU, boat gives each one its own VM that code can create, fork and drive, with a desktop and coding agents inside. The GPU part of the work can stay on Paperspace or Hyperstack while the agents run on boat.
A disk saved every minute, and free stops
Agents break machines and sit idle. Paperspace snapshots at most hourly and keeps billing disk and IP, and Hyperstack bills a stopped VM in full unless you hibernate it, with hand-made snapshots that shut the VM off.
Driven from code, with fork while running
Neither API can run commands inside a machine, so you build and maintain your own SSH layer. Copying a machine means turning it off for a template on Paperspace, or snapshot plus custom image on Hyperstack; boat forks a running sandbox in one call.
Desktop, coding agents and HTTPS URLs inside
Neither gives a Linux machine a desktop, so computer-use agents need a desktop and VNC you install on every image. boat ships a 60fps desktop with Chromium, Claude Code and Codex, a credentials proxy and HTTPS URLs for 50 ports.
Use boat when the work is agents writing and running code on CPU: each one in its own VM that code can create, fork and drive, with a disk saved every minute, free stops, a desktop and coding agents built in. Compare it one to one: boat vs Paperspace and boat vs Hyperstack.
Questions people ask
Is Paperspace cheaper than Hyperstack?
For CPU agent work in our scenarios, yes: one coding agent on workdays is $19 a month on Paperspace and $114 on Hyperstack, and 50 agents in parallel $804 versus $5,720. Hyperstack's closest CPU flavor has 8 vCPU against 4, so part of the gap is size. For GPU eval jobs Hyperstack comes out cheaper, at $625 a month against $2,982.
Which is faster, Paperspace or Hyperstack?
Neither has a comparable CPU measurement in the public benchmark runs we use, so we cannot say. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in StarSling's run.
Do stopped machines cost money on Paperspace and Hyperstack?
On Paperspace an off machine stops compute billing, but its disk and public IP keep billing until you delete it. On Hyperstack a SHUTOFF VM bills at the full rate; a hibernated VM bills only its disk and kept IP, and restoring it needs the flavor in stock. On boat a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
Can Paperspace and Hyperstack run Docker?
Yes. Both rent full virtual machines, Paperspace machines run Docker inside, and Hyperstack's Ubuntu images come with or without Docker. boat sandboxes come with Docker, Docker Compose, systemd and /dev/kvm ready.
Which has better GPUs?
Hyperstack rents newer cards, up to H200, B200 and B300 in 8-GPU nodes. Paperspace goes up to A100 and H100, and H100s need approval. boat has no GPUs.
Where do Paperspace and Hyperstack run?
Paperspace runs in New York, Amsterdam and Canada. Hyperstack runs in Norway, Canada and Texas. boat runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France), with EU data residency.
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