# GitHub Codespaces

Cloud development environments on GitHub, each in its own VM, billed per hour of compute by core count plus storage per GB-month.

- Operated by: GitHub (Microsoft)
- Status: Active [1]
- Website: https://github.com/features/codespaces
- Categories: Devboxes
- Checked: 31 Oct 2026

## GitHub Codespaces (Devboxes)

- Lowest price: $0.18 /h (2-core (2 vCPU / 8 GB))
- 1-hour session: ≥ $0.18 (2 vCPU / 4 GB · rank 7 of 11)
- Fleet month: ≥ $1,584 (50 × 8 h × 22 days)
- Billed on: Running time (increment unknown)
- Isolation: unknown (sessions up to 12 h)

What to know:

- Max session 12 h: A sandbox is stopped after 12 h.

### Plans

- Free: Free; Personal accounts: 120 core hours of compute and 15 GB-month of storage a month [1]
- Pro: $4 /month; Personal accounts: 180 core hours of compute and 20 GB-month of storage a month [5]

### Billing

- Payment: Metered: usage billed afterwards [1]
- Plan minimum: None [1]
- Billing increment: unknown (Compute time is summed and reported to billing hourly; the billing increment is not published) [1]
- Minimum charge: unknown (Not published) [1]
- Per-job fee: None [1]

### Runtime

- Billed on: Running time [1]
- Isolation: unknown (Each codespace runs in its own dedicated VM; the hypervisor is not named) [1]
- Max session: 12 h [1]
- Concurrent sandboxes: unknown (Limits on created and active codespaces 'vary based on a number of factors'; no number published) [1]
- Largest vCPU: 32 [1]
- Largest memory: 128 GB [1]

### Lifecycle

- Survives a stop: Disk [3]
- Snapshots: No [3]
- Pause and resume: Yes [3]
- Fork: No [3]
- Compute billed while stopped: No [3]
- Auto-stop: after 30 min [3]
- Start time (vendor claim): unknown (No start-time number published) [3]

### Capabilities

- GPU: No [4]
- Desktop: None [4]
- Coding agents installed: None [4]
- Agent prompt API: No [4]
- SSH: Yes [4]
- Docker inside: Yes [4]
- SDKs: CLI, REST [4]
- SOC 2: unknown (GitHub publishes SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports for GitHub Enterprise Cloud; no public page says whether Codespaces is in scope) [4]

### Storage and network

- Disk included: None [1]
- Extra disk: $0.07 per GB-month [1]
- Snapshot storage: unknown (No snapshot feature; prebuild storage is billed like codespace storage at $0.07 per GB-month) [1]
- Egress: unknown (Not published) [1]

### Platform

- Regions: UsEast, UsWest, EuropeWest, SoutheastAsia [2]
- Your cloud (BYOC): No [2]
- Self-host: No [2]

### Free allowance

- Minutes a month: unknown (The personal-account quota is in core hours (Free 120, Pro 180), not minutes: 60 hours on a 2-core machine, 30 on a 4-core) [1]
- Credit a month: None [1]
- One-time credit: None [1]

### Prices

| Size | vCPU | RAM | Disk | Plan | Price | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-core | 2 | 8 GB | unknown | any | $0.18 /h [1] | $0.18 |
| 4-core | 4 | 16 GB | unknown | any | $0.36 /h [1] | $0.36 |
| 8-core | 8 | 32 GB | unknown | any | $0.72 /h [1] | $0.72 |
| 16-core | 16 | 64 GB | unknown | any | $1.44 /h [1] | $1.44 |
| 32-core | 32 | 128 GB | unknown | any | $2.88 /h [1] | $2.88 |

- Compute is priced per hour by core count; 16 cores cost eight times 2 cores. Storage is measured in GB-hours and billed at $0.07 per GB-month for as long as a codespace or prebuild exists, running or stopped.
- Personal accounts get a monthly quota of 120 core hours and 15 GB-month (Free) or 180 core hours and 20 GB-month (Pro); a 2-core codespace uses 2 core hours per hour. Organization and enterprise plans include no Codespaces quota.
- Default idle timeout is 30 minutes (5 to 240 allowed); a codespace stops after 12 hours regardless, and stopped codespaces are deleted after 30 days by default.
- Prebuilds run as GitHub Actions workflows, billed as Actions minutes, and their storage is billed like codespace storage.
- Memory per machine type is from GitHub's pricing calculator; disk size depends on the machine type offered (e.g. 32 GB or 64 GB) and is not published per size.

## Sources

[1] https://docs.github.com/en/billing/concepts/product-billing/github-codespaces (checked 31 Oct 2026)
[2] https://docs.github.com/en/rest/codespaces/codespaces (checked 31 Oct 2026)
[3] https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/about-codespaces/understanding-the-codespace-lifecycle (checked 31 Oct 2026)
[4] https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/developing-in-a-codespace/using-github-codespaces-with-github-cli (checked 31 Oct 2026)
[5] https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/learning-about-github/faq-about-changes-to-githubs-plans (checked 31 Oct 2026)