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ProvidersChecked 2026-10-28

Lizard

Firecracker sandboxes at a flat hourly price per size, plus an app platform for whatever the agent builds.

Short answer: One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $19.00 a month here, the 2nd cheapest of the 11 providers that run it as described. The AI model adds about $14.70 a month on top (GLM 5.3, 30 requests a day at 40k tokens each, median zero-retention price; from $6.84 at the cheapest host). Fits well: A flat hourly price per size with a $19 plan, billed per second including idle time.

lizard.build16 providersSources linked

Lizard is a cloud platform with two halves. Sandboxes are Firecracker microVMs for running agent code, sold in three fixed sizes at a flat hourly price. An app platform deploys a repository, with managed Postgres, Redis and S3-compatible storage.

The docs describe the sandbox half first and treat app deployment as the second step, once the agent has built something. The two halves are billed on different meters, which is the most confusing thing about the product.

The self-serve plans are Pro at $19 a month, Pro 5x at $99 and Pro 20x at $499; each includes its own fee back as usage across the whole platform, and the bigger two raise the sandbox limits.

At a glance

Who it is forAgent builders who want cheap per-hour machines with generous pause and snapshot semantics, and who may want to deploy the result on the same platform.
IsolationFirecracker microVM with its own guest kernel, commands run as root by default, Linux only. Docker inside a sandbox, systemd and nested virtualisation are not documented.
SizesThree fixed sizes: Small 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 5 GB, Medium 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 20 GB, Large 8 vCPU / 16 GB / 50 GB. No custom size and no live resize. Volumes add up to 50 GB at /workspace.
A personal agent hereAbout $19.00 a month for one always-on 2 vCPU / 4 GiB machine (Small: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 5 GiB + 15 GiB volume), before the AI model. Change the numbers
Recommended in

Fits well, fits badly

Our reading of the sourced material on this page, not a provider claim.

Fits well

  • A flat hourly price per size with a $19 plan, billed per second including idle time.
  • Snapshots that keep memory and processes, and forks of 1–100 copies.
  • A dashboard-first first machine with a hosted MCP server for assistants.

Fits badly

  • A long job from the SDK or CLI: the default lifetime is five minutes and there is no idle timer.
  • Anything outside /workspace that must survive a stop, which deletes the rest of the disk.
  • SSH-dependent tooling: there is no SSH protocol, so scp and port forwarding do not work.

How it bills

ModelThree plans, Pro at $19, Pro 5x at $99 and Pro 20x at $499 a month, each including its fee as usage; sandboxes are a flat hourly price per size.
MeterPer second while running, idle time included, at $0.0162 / $0.0324 / $0.0648 an hour for Small / Medium / Large. Volumes bill per GB-month on used space.
While stoppedPaused compute is $0, and no storage charge for a paused sandbox's disk or memory is published. A stopped sandbox is deleted, so only volumes and snapshots remain.
Plan fee$19 (Pro), $99 (Pro 5x) or $499 (Pro 20x) a month, each coming back as the same amount of usage. Unused usage does not carry over.
Minimum$19 a month is the floor. The 7-day trial includes $5 of usage and needs a card.

How Lizard lets you try before paying is on Trials and free tiers.

Where it stands out

  • Pause keeps memory, processes and the whole disk, and paused compute is $0.
  • Snapshots capture memory, processes and the whole disk, and restore into a new sandbox.
  • Fork 1–100 copies of a running sandbox with memory, source paused only briefly.
  • A dashboard that creates sandboxes without code.
  • 2 TB of sandbox egress a month included, with no per-GB charge.

Using it without writing code

DashboardYes, and it creates sandboxes without code: pick a template, region, size and lifetime, then pause, resume, open a terminal or browse volumes.
Without codePartly. Creating a sandbox is click-driven, and the terminal tab gives you a shell. Running an agent, taking a snapshot, forking and attaching a volume are CLI or SDK only, and a card is needed to start the trial.
SignupGitHub or Google, then a card through Stripe Checkout for the 7-day trial. Nothing is charged during the trial. There is no free tier to use without a plan.
Docs and supportUnusually candid: per-page updated dates, test-status notes saying what was and was not verified, raw Markdown twins. Support is email and Discord. The status page covers the platform but not sandbox capacity.

Capability checklist

Every capability the guide checks, with the catch where Lizard's version falls short. Compare all providers

Isolation

Sizes and regions

Lifecycle

Snapshots and forks

Storage

Idle and waking

Reaching it

Custom domains

  • Your own domain With a catch Custom domains work for deployed apps, not for a sandbox's preview link.
  • Automatic HTTPS With a catch Certificates are handled for deployed apps, but a sandbox preview has no domain to certify.

Outbound network

Keys and secrets

Ways to drive it

Built-in agents

Teams and accounts

Billing models

Trials and free tiers

The company

The company

From the profile's company section: the legal entity, who funds it, and what a buyer can check before signing.

Legal entity

Dragon Labs LLC, doing business as Lizard. Delaware law, with a Portland, Oregon mailing address.

“We are Dragon Labs LLC, doing business as Lizard” lizard.build docs-confirmed

History

First public SDK release 24 June 2026 and first blog post 31 July 2026. No founding date is published.

“"created":"2026-06-24T11:27:01.839Z"” registry.npmjs.org third-party

Funding

No announced round, amount or investor list. A directory labels the stage Seed.

not-published

Headcount

Two, per LinkedIn. Yura Dubinin is named as co-founder and president; Mikhail Erin co-authors the blog.

“Discover all 2 employees” linkedin.com third-party

Status and SLA

99.95% platform uptime. No sandbox component is monitored, and no SLA exists outside Enterprise.

“Platform 99.95% uptime” status.lizard.build third-party

Certification

No SOC 2 report yet; no ISO 27001 or HIPAA claim is published.

not-published

Caveats and contradictions

Shown as the research found them. A contradiction means the provider's own pages disagree; an open question means the answer is not published.

  1. 01

    Snapshot storage has no published price Open question

    Restores are priced at the source's hourly rate, but stored snapshots have no rate anywhere on the pricing or billing pages.

  2. 02

    Stop deletes the sandbox and its disk Open question

    There is no stopped-but-restartable state. Only /workspace volumes and snapshots survive, and there is no trash or recycle bin.

  3. 03

    Two default lifetimes that contradict each other Contradiction

    Five minutes from the SDK and CLI, no expiry from the raw API and dashboard. A beginner following the CLI docs can lose work without warning.

    “Five minutes by default from the SDK and CLI; no expiration by default from the raw API and dashboard”
    Lizarddocs-confirmed
    “Pick a lifetime under Delete after: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day, 7 days, or Never (the default).”
    Lizarddocs-confirmed
  4. 04

    Docker inside a sandbox is not documented Open question

    Neither is systemd, nested virtualisation, kernel feature support or CPU architecture. Treat all of them as unverified.

  5. 05

    No spending cap Open question

    Overage is charged automatically in steps from $20 up to $1,000, with no ceiling. The docs say so explicitly.

  6. 06

    The runtime and billing model changed without notice Open question

    On 30 September the docs described one fixed 4 vCPU / 4096 MiB sandbox in shared-kernel Kubernetes pods, billed on measured usage. By 13 October the pricing page listed Firecracker microVMs at flat per-size rates, from $0.0162 an hour. The changelog and blog do not mention the switch. Whether anyone's bill rose cannot be told, because the old usage rates were never published. Older sandboxes keep usage-based billing.

Sources

The three shared workloads

List-price illustrations from the calculator, not quotes. Prices checked 29 October 2026.

A · 1,000 short tasks

$19.00

Small: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 5 GiB + 5 GiB volume (plan: Pro)

  • Machine time (Small)166.67 h × $0.0162$2.70
  • Extra disk (volume)5 GiB × $0.14 a month × 0.23 machine-months$0.16
  • Pro: $19.00 plan, $19.00 of usage included.
  • Between sessions the machine is paused, not stopped: a stopped sandbox is deleted. No storage charge for a paused sandbox is published.
  • Extra disk is a volume at $0.14 per GB-month of used space.
  • Sandbox egress is included up to 2 TB per rolling 30 days; the price beyond that is not published.
  • Pro 5x ($99) and Pro 20x ($499) include the same amount of usage as their fee and raise the sandbox limits; they never lower a bill, so the calculator lands on Pro unless you need the higher limits.

B · One always-on box

$27.85

Medium: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB / 20 GiB + 30 GiB volume (plan: Pro)

  • Machine time (Medium)730 h × $0.0324$23.65
  • Extra disk (volume)30 GiB × $0.14 a month × 1$4.20
  • Pro: $19.00 plan, $19.00 of usage included, $8.85 over.
  • Between sessions the machine is paused, not stopped: a stopped sandbox is deleted. No storage charge for a paused sandbox is published.
  • Extra disk is a volume at $0.14 per GB-month of used space.
  • Sandbox egress is included up to 2 TB per rolling 30 days; the price beyond that is not published.
  • Pro 5x ($99) and Pro 20x ($499) include the same amount of usage as their fee and raise the sandbox limits; they never lower a bill, so the calculator lands on Pro unless you need the higher limits.

C · Three hours a day

$19.00

Small: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 5 GiB + 15 GiB volume (plan: Pro)

  • Machine time (Small)90 h × $0.0162$1.46
  • Extra disk (volume)15 GiB × $0.14 a month × 1$2.10
  • Pro: $19.00 plan, $19.00 of usage included.
  • Between sessions the machine is paused, not stopped: a stopped sandbox is deleted. No storage charge for a paused sandbox is published.
  • Extra disk is a volume at $0.14 per GB-month of used space.
  • Sandbox egress is included up to 2 TB per rolling 30 days; the price beyond that is not published.
  • Pro 5x ($99) and Pro 20x ($499) include the same amount of usage as their fee and raise the sandbox limits; they never lower a bill, so the calculator lands on Pro unless you need the higher limits.