Self-hosted Firecracker logo

Self-hosted Firecracker

The baseline: Firecracker on your own metal, plus every hard part you now own.

firecracker-microvm.github.iogithub.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/tree/main/docsgithub.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker
Overall in sandbox providers
16of 19 · score 60.8
Data coverage
96%
25 of 26 fields sourced

Best for

  • •Sustained volume where vendor margin exceeds an engineer's salary
  • •Hard data-residency or air-gap requirements
  • •You already operate bare metal and a scheduler

Strong on

  • +Sydney region Yes 1/18
  • +Concurrent limit 1,000 sandboxes 1/15
  • +GitHub stars 27,000 1/7
  • +Price / hour $0.03/hr 2/17
  • +Cold start 200ms 3/16

Weak on

  • −Streaming output No 16/17
    Better: E2B: Yes
  • −Idle cost full-rate 18/19
    Better: Fly.io Machines: free-when-stopped
  • −Preview URLs No 18/19
    Better: E2B: Yes
  • −MCP server No 13/18
    Better: Daytona: Yes

vs Fly.io Machines

  • •Ahead on Concurrent limit: 1,000 sandboxes vs 500 sandboxes
  • •Ahead on Cold start: 200ms vs 900ms
  • •Behind on Idle cost: full-rate vs free-when-stopped
  • •Behind on Meter: per-hour vs per-second

How Self-hosted Firecracker scores among 19 sandbox providers25 of 26 fields known

Runtime13

Cold start3rd
200ms
3/16
Leader: Riza · 120ms
Cold start (claimed)
125ms
4/12
Leader: Blaxel · 25ms
firecracker-microvm.github.io · 2026-01-15
Max runtime1st
24h
1/18
Persistent FS1st
Yes
1/19
Snapshot & fork
Partial
6/19
Leader: Daytona · Yes
Custom images1st
Yes
1/19
GPU
Partial
5/15
Leader: Modal · Yes
Runtimes
any-oci-image
11/18
Leader: boat · python, javascript-typescript, bash, go, rust, java, ruby, php, any-oci-image
Preview URLs
No
18/19
Leader: E2B · Yes
Browser inside3rd
Partial
3/18
Leader: E2B · Yes
File up/download
No
19/19
Leader: E2B · Yes
Sydney region1st
Yes
1/18
Concurrent limit1st
1,000 sandboxes
1/15

Isolation & network3

Isolation1st
microvm
1/19
firecracker-microvm.github.io · 2026-01-15
Root in guest1st
Yes
1/19
Egress control1st
allowlist
1/19

Agent integration3

MCP server
No
13/18
Leader: Daytona · Yes
SDKs
rest-api
17/19
Leader: Runloop · python, typescript, rest-api, cli
Streaming output
No
16/17
Leader: E2B · Yes

Pricing3

Price / hour2nd
$0.03/hr
2/17
Leader: boat · $0.018/hr
Meter
per-hour
16/19
Leader: Cloudflare Sandbox · per-10ms
Idle cost
full-rate
18/19
Leader: Fly.io Machines · free-when-stopped

Traction2

GitHub stars1st
27,000
1/7
Funding
—

Positioning1

Positioning
The microVM monitor underneath most of this roster, and none of the platform.

Timeline1

Shipped
2018
16/16
Leader: Daytona · 2025
firecracker-microvm.github.io · 2026-01-15

Alternatives8

Compare

Sources1