# Daytona vs Modal: Daytona is 30% cheaper per agent run Runtime Cloud (withruntime.com) costs 84% less than Modal; Daytona, on containers, costs less than Modal. ## Which is better, Daytona or Modal? It depends on GPUs and on what your team already runs. For CPU agents that mostly wait on a model, Runtime is the cheapest of the three: $0.64 for the job below, against $2.76 on Daytona and $3.97 on Modal. Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM, and a pause keeps memory and processes. Pick Daytona for GPU or Windows machines or an EU region. Pick Modal for GPU sandboxes beside your Modal functions, endpoints and scheduled jobs. ## At a glance | | Daytona | Modal Sandboxes | Runtime | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | | Isolation | Containers by default; VM sandboxes as a separate class | gVisor, a user-space kernel, or a VM with its own kernel; GPU sandboxes need gVisor | Firecracker microVM, own kernel, every sandbox | | CPU | $0.0504 per allocated vCPU-hour | $0.1419 per physical core-hour (2 vCPUs), request or use | $0.025 per vCPU-hour of measured CPU, with a small floor | | Memory | $0.0162 per GiB-hour | $0.0240 per GiB-hour, request or use | $0.0075 per reserved GiB-hour | | Plan fee | None published | Starter $0 with $30 a month of compute; Team $250 a month | None; prepaid credit from $10 | | Free start | $200 of compute | $30 of compute a month on Starter | 100 free hours of a 1 GB machine in the first 30 days, no card | | Idle behaviour | Stops after 15 idle minutes by default | Up to 24 hours a session; snapshots carry state past it | Pause keeps files, memory and processes while you have credit | | GPUs | GPU sandboxes; Windows machines too | GPU sandboxes | CPUs only | | Agent sign-in | API key | API key | Browser approval; no key in the agent's config | ## Which is cheaper, Daytona or Modal? Daytona, at every load, for this size. Two allocated vCPUs on Daytona are $0.1008 an hour ($0.0504 each). Modal counts the pair as one physical core at $0.1419 an hour, charged on the request or the use, whichever is larger. On memory, Daytona asks $0.0162 per GiB-hour and Modal $0.0240. Neither discounts a sandbox that sits idle while it waits for a model reply. Runtime does: it bills the CPU the code uses, at $0.025 per vCPU-hour, and only a floor of a twentieth of a vCPU while nothing runs. ## Cost for the same job 1,000 runs on 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, which is one physical core in Modal's terms. Every run is 60 seconds long and spends 20 CPU-seconds computing. ``` Daytona CPU 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 2 × $0.0504 = $1.68 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0162 = $1.08 Total $2.76 Modal CPU 1,000 × 60 s × 1 core × $0.00003942 = $2.37 Memory 1,000 × 60 s × 4 × $0.00000667 = $1.60 Total $3.97 Runtime CPU 1,000 × 20 s / 3,600 × $0.025 = $0.14 Memory 1,000 × 60 s / 3,600 × 4 × $0.0075 = $0.50 Total $0.64 ``` At 100,000 runs a month, that is $276.00 on Daytona, $396.60 on Modal and $63.89 on Runtime. If both CPUs are busy for the whole minute, the job costs $1.33 on Runtime, $2.76 on Daytona and $3.97 on Modal, because only Runtime's figure depended on load in the first place. Plan fees, disk, network and free credit are not included. ## Container, gVisor or microVM? Three different answers. Daytona's standard sandbox is a container, with a separate VM class for pausing with memory and taking memory snapshots. Modal runs a sandbox under gVisor, described by its project as an application kernel that "intercepts application system calls and acts as the guest kernel", or, with `runtime="vm"`, in a VM with its own kernel; GPU sandboxes need gVisor. Runtime boots every sandbox as a Firecracker microVM with its own Linux kernel, so any sandbox can pause with its memory and there is no class to select. Background: [microVM vs container](/compare/microvm-vs-container) and [Firecracker vs gVisor](/compare/firecracker-vs-gvisor). ## Which one to pick - **Daytona** if Windows machines, an EU region alongside the US, or $200 of free compute matter to you. - **Modal** if your team already builds on Modal functions, web endpoints and scheduled jobs and wants sandboxes in the same SDK. - **Runtime** if you want a microVM for every sandbox at 77% below Daytona's price and 84% below Modal's, pause and forks that keep memory and running processes, and an agent that connects with no API key. Runtime runs Linux on CPUs; both rivals offer GPU sandboxes. ## Runtime Cloud Neither rival charges less while an agent waits; Runtime does, and the same job comes out 77% below Daytona and 84% below Modal. 1,000 one-minute runs of a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox cost $2.76 on Daytona, $3.97 on Modal and $0.64 on Runtime. Runtime's CPU charge follows the code's actual use, and each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with a kernel of its own. Rates checked 25 October 2026. Begin on the free usage with `npx withruntime login`. Daytona and Modal Sandboxes code each has a drop-in import, described in the [migration guide](/docs/migrate). ## Moving to Runtime For Daytona the change is the import line: ```ts no-run import { Daytona } from "withruntime/daytona"; // was: from "@daytona/sdk" ``` ```python no-run from withruntime.daytona import Daytona # was: from daytona import Daytona ``` After that, Daytona's `stop()` pauses the sandbox with files and memory, and `start()` resumes it. Modal code is rewritten call by call, without needing an App: `modal.Sandbox.create(app=...)` to `Sandbox.create()`, `sb.exec(*args)` to `exec`, `Sandbox.from_name` to `Sandbox.getOrCreate(name)`: ```python from withruntime import Sandbox with Sandbox.create() as box: box.files.write("/workspace/invoice.py", "print(sum([125, 250, 375]))\n") print(box.exec("python3 /workspace/invoice.py", check=True).stdout) ``` Credit you add within 30 days of signing up is matched, up to $1,000 in total. The one instruction in [migration](/docs/migrate) has a coding agent do the port on a branch and test it on the free usage. Longer comparisons: [Runtime vs Daytona](/docs/daytona-alternative), [Runtime vs Modal](/docs/modal-sandbox-alternative). ## Sources Daytona and Modal pricing pages rechecked 25 October 2026; the rest checked 25 October 2026. - [Daytona pricing](https://www.daytona.io/pricing), [Daytona sandboxes](https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/sandboxes), [Daytona on microVMs, pause and fork](https://www.daytona.io/dotfiles/vms-pause-and-fork) - [Modal pricing](https://modal.com/pricing), [Modal resources and billing](https://modal.com/docs/guide/resources), [Modal Sandboxes](https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox), [Modal security](https://modal.com/docs/guide/security) - [gVisor documentation](https://gvisor.dev/docs/), read 26 October 2026 - Runtime [pricing](/docs/pricing) and [security](/docs/security) Facts on this page were checked on 26 October 2026.