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Heighliner vs a VPS, a cron job and a .env file
An honest comparison of running AI agents on your own VPS with cron and running them on Heighliner: cost, control, budgets, approvals and when the VPS is the better choice.
Most agents today run on a VPS or a spare machine with a crontab and a .env file. That setup is simple, cheap and fully under your control. It is also missing every safeguard that matters when the agent gets something wrong.
How do they compare?
| VPS + cron + .env | Heighliner | |
|---|---|---|
| Spend cap | None, unless you build one | Dollar budget per fleet and per run, hard stop |
| Model key | Raw key in the environment | Your key, attached at the gateway outside the sandbox |
| Approvals | None | Effect classes; irreversible actions wait for a person |
| Isolation | Agents share the box | A sandbox per agent |
| Crash | The run starts over | Runs resume from the last durable step |
| Egress | Anything | Only through the gateway |
| Audit | Whatever you log | Hash-chained trail and a receipt per run |
| Cost when idle | The VPS bills all month | Sleeping agents do not hold a machine |
| Setup | Minutes, if you know Linux | A manifest, a plan and an apply |
Where is the VPS better?
- Simplicity. One machine, one crontab, nothing new to learn.
- Fixed cost. A small VPS is a predictable monthly bill.
- Total control. You can install anything and change anything.
- No vendor. Nothing between you and your machine. Heighliner's self-hosted option exists for teams who need this.
When does Heighliner make sense?
When an agent can spend real money, touch something you cannot undo, or run while you sleep. The VPS gives you a machine; Heighliner gives you the budget, the approval gate, the sandbox and the record around it.
Updated
Questions
- Is a VPS cheaper than Heighliner?
- For one small agent that runs rarely, often yes: a small VPS is a fixed monthly cost and you pay nothing else. Heighliner's Free plan has $5 of usage credit a month, and you pay your model provider directly in both cases.
- Can I move an agent from my VPS to Heighliner?
- Yes. Heighliner runs the harness you already use, such as Claude Code, Codex, Hermes or OpenCode, or any container. You describe it in a manifest instead of a crontab.
- Can I still run Heighliner on my own servers?
- Yes. Heighliner can run in your own cloud account (BYOC) or fully self-hosted, including air-gapped.
Related
- Heighliner vs hosted agent sandboxesHosted sandbox services give an agent an isolated machine through an API. Heighliner runs whole fleets with budgets, approvals and audit around them. Which do you need?
- Why agents need a budget, not a dashboardA dashboard tells you what an agent spent after the fact. A budget stops it before it overspends. How dollar caps and leases make agents safe to leave running.
- DeploymentRun Heighliner three ways from one codebase: our managed cloud, your own AWS, GCP or Azure account (BYOC), or fully self-hosted and air-gapped.
- PricingHeighliner early access pricing: Free, Pro $20 and Team $200 with usage credit, per-second usage, model tokens on your own key, plus BYOC and self-hosted.