Side by side
| VPS | Virtual machine | Container | Agent sandbox | Uno computer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A rented VM with a public address | A computer made of software | An isolated process | A VM for one agent task | A microVM that sleeps and wakes |
| Own kernel | yes | yes | no, shares the host's | usually | yes |
| Root | yes | yes | inside the container | varies | yes |
| Lives for | months | as long as you run it | as long as the app | minutes to hours; some cap at 24 h | months |
| When idle | runs and bills all month | runs or is switched off | stopped, memory lost | paused or deleted | asleep, memory kept |
| Typical price, 1 vCPU class | $4.5–6.5 | by the hour | $7–30 on a platform | $44–199 with live memory | $5 |
A month of one small, always-reachable machine
About 1 vCPU and 1–2 GB, in $ per month. Ranges show the cheapest and the dearest provider we checked.
Show as a table
| Option | $ per month | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Uno Small | 5 | 1 vCPU · 1 GB · sleeps when idle, keeps memory |
| Budget VPS | 4.5–6.5 | Hetzner CX, OVH, Contabo · shared vCPU |
| Container platforms | 7–30 | Fly shared, Koyeb, Northflank, Railway |
| Agent sandboxes with live memory | 44–199 | E2B, Morph, Fly Sprites, CodeSandbox, kept available all month |
VPS and virtual machine
Every VPS is a virtual machine. The difference is who runs it: a VM can live on your own laptop or office server, a VPS is one a hosting company rents you with a public address. Both give you a full operating system and root.
Container
A container packs an app with its libraries, so it runs the same on any machine. It is light and starts in about a second, because it does not boot a kernel: it borrows the host's. That is also its limit: containers on one host share a kernel, so a hole in it is a hole for all of them.
Agent sandbox
A sandbox is a small VM an AI agent starts through an SDK, runs code in and throws away. Services like E2B and Modal are built for many short runs. Keeping one alive costs a lot, and some end a session after 24 h.
Where Uno is worse
- Budget VPS hosts sell memory cheaper: $0.65–1.6 per GB a month against $4.2–5 on Uno. If you need lots of memory and nothing else, take them.
- Our vCPU are shared, not dedicated, and there is one region today: the Netherlands.
- For thousands of throwaway runs a minute through an SDK, sandbox services are the better tool. Uno is built for computers that live for months.
An Uno computer, from $5 a month
A microVM with root that keeps its memory while it sleeps. Pick the size; move up any time.
Small
A Telegram bot, a VPN, a small backend
$5/ month
- 1 vCPU · 1 GB
- 15 GB disk
- 25 GB cloud storage
- 5 boosts a month
Plus
Agents that work with your laptop closed
$20/ month
- 4 vCPU · 4 GB
- 40 GB disk
- 100 GB cloud storage
- Uno Work in the cloud
Pro
A product in production, a second MacBook
$70/ month
- 16 vCPU · 16 GB
- 120 GB disk
- 300 GB cloud storage
- Speed of a MacBook Air M4
Max
A team and many agents at once
$200/ month
- 32 vCPU · 48 GB
- 300 GB disk
- 1,024 GB cloud storage
- 5 public IPv4
Add Uno AI to any plan: 40 h of AI work a month on Small, 100 h on Plus, unlimited on Max. Today: GLM-5.3 Flash and MiMo v2.6 Pro. Or sign in with your own Claude or ChatGPT.