I have a use case that requires starting a VM (or Docker image, though less ideal) in under a few seconds, using a pre-setup image.<p>I need to run them for 1-2 minutes and then kill them, i.e. looking for a hosting provider that charges in small increments (seconds or minutes).<p>What are my options?
This could be a fit for serverless frameworks. AWS Lambda and similar frameworks can help you with such usecases. Take a look at Firecracker VM and microVM space.<p><a href="https://firecracker-microvm.github.io/" rel="nofollow">https://firecracker-microvm.github.io/</a>
containers are the only thing that start that fast.
google cloud and azure allow you to create and destroy vms via api and both allow you to use your own base images, i know this much because an colleague currently is setting up an web ui for internal customers.