Yes, CodeSandbox has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes up to 5 members in a workspace, 40 hours of monthly VM credits, and CodeSandbox SDK lite with up to 10 concurrent VM Sandboxes. FreeTier.co estimates the free tier at about $51/mo.
About
CodeSandbox is a cloud-based development environment platform that provides browser sandboxes and VM sandboxes for running code, prototyping applications, and interpreting code in isolated environments. It includes the CodeSandbox SDK for programmatically creating and managing sandboxes, plus browser-based tools such as Sandpack for live coding in the browser.
The free offering includes a Build plan with 5 members, 40 hours of monthly VM credits, unlimited Browser & VM Sandboxes, private sandboxes, VM specs up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB RAM, and the CodeSandbox VS Code extension. The product is aimed at developers, teams, and AI agent workflows that need isolated execution, snapshots, and quick sandbox startup times.
- 5 workspace members
- 40 monthly VM credit hours
- Unlimited Browser and VM Sandboxes
- Private sandbox support
- Up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB RAM
- CodeSandbox SDK lite access
- VS Code extension support
- 2-second sandbox startup
Free Tier Value
This free tier is a genuinely usable starter workspace: it includes private sandboxes, VS Code extension access, and the same unlimited browser/VM sandbox access as the paid plans, but it is capped at 5 members and 40 hours of VM runtime per month. The cheapest paid plan starts at $170/month, and the free tier delivers roughly 30% of that plan’s monthly VM-credit allowance plus most of the core collaboration features, so a fair buyer-style estimate is about $51/month. A credit card is not explicitly waived, and the offer is capped rather than unlimited, which keeps the value well below the paid plan.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- Up to 5 members in a workspace.
- 40 hours of monthly VM credits.
- Unlimited Browser Sandboxes.
- Unlimited VM Sandboxes.
- CodeSandbox SDK lite with up to 10 concurrent VM Sandboxes.
- Private Sandboxes.
- VM specs up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB RAM.
- VS Code extension access.
See CodeSandbox pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Scale
- members
- 20
- monthly VM credits
- 160 hours
- new Sandboxes/hour
- 1,000
- concurrent VMs
- 250
- hourly requests
- 10,000
- Up to 20 members
- 160 hours of monthly VM credits
- Access to on-demand VM credits at $0.15 per hour
- 1,000 new Sandboxes an hour
- 250 concurrent VMs
- 10,000 hourly requests
- CodeSandbox SDK
- More VM tiers
Enterprise
- members
- Unlimited
- VM specs
- 64 vCPUs / 128 GiB RAM
- concurrent VMs
- Bespoke
- hourly requests
- Tailored
- Unlimited members
- Up to 50% off bulk VM credit packs
- Create as many Sandboxes as you need
- Bespoke concurrent VMs
- Tailored hourly request limits
- VM specs up to 64 vCPUs + 128 GiB RAM
- Dedicated support
- SOC 2 Type II compliance
Pricing extracted from CodeSandbox's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is CodeSandbox free forever?
Yes. CodeSandbox has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
What happens when you exceed CodeSandbox's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. CodeSandbox's cheapest paid plan is Scale at $170 / month.
What is CodeSandbox's free tier worth?
CodeSandbox's free tier is worth about $51 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 60/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
