A Colab alternative with the GPU you choose
Published 12 October 2026 · prices on this page are live
Google Colab is the easiest way to start with a GPU, and its free tier is enough for learning. The trouble starts with real projects: sessions that disconnect, no say in which GPU you get, files that vanish, and a subscription in dollars that rations GPU time in compute units.
Where Colab is great
- Learning Python and machine learning: the free tier often gives you a T4 GPU at no cost.
- Short experiments and tutorial notebooks.
- Sharing a notebook that others can run in one click.
Where it gets in the way
- Sessions end. Free sessions disconnect when idle and have a maximum length, so long training runs get cut off.
- You do not choose the GPU. Free users get what is available; paid plans give priority, not a guarantee.
- GPU time is rationed. Colab Pro has been US$9.99 a month for 100 compute units, and an A100 uses roughly 13–15 units an hour, so a month of Pro buys about seven A100 hours. Google changes these terms, so check its pricing page.
- Files are temporary unless you copy them to Google Drive.
Colab and PowerPod side by side
| Colab free | Colab Pro | PowerPod | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | US$9.99 a month for 100 compute units | Per second while a machine runs, from USD 0.09 an hour for 12 GB or more; no subscription |
| Pay in | — | US dollars | US dollars, or Nepali or Indian rupees for accounts there, by card |
| GPU | Whatever is free, often a T4 | Priority access, not a guarantee | You pick, from an RTX 3060 to an H100, with its memory shown |
| Session length | Limited; disconnects when idle | Longer, still limited | Runs until you stop it, or your timer or spending limit does |
| Files | Gone when the session ends | Gone unless saved to Drive | Kept on the machine's disk while it is stopped |
| Software | Notebook | Notebook | JupyterLab, ComfyUI, Ollama, vLLM and more, plus SSH |
What the same work costs on PowerPod
A full working day, eight hours in JupyterLab, costs on today's cheapest hosts:
| GPU | Typical time | USD | INR | NPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 8 h | USD 0.72 | INR 72 | NPR 112 |
| RTX A4000 | 8 h | USD 1.44 | INR 136 | NPR 216 |
| RTX 3090 | 8 h | USD 2.08 | INR 200 | NPR 312 |
| RTX 4090 | 8 h | USD 5.04 | INR 488 | NPR 768 |
| A100 SXM4 | 8 h | USD 5.20 | INR 504 | NPR 792 |
Moving a Colab notebook
- In Colab, choose File, then Download, then Download .ipynb.
- Rent a GPU with the PyTorch + JupyterLab software and open JupyterLab from the console.
- Drag the notebook into JupyterLab's file browser.
- Replace drive.mount() and other Colab-only code: upload your data to /workspace, or download it with wget or the Hugging Face datasets library.
- Run your pip install cells as before; PyTorch is already installed.
- Stop the machine when you are done, or set a timer when you rent in case you forget.
The honest trade-offs
- PowerPod is not free: you pay for every second a machine runs, so stop it when you finish. Timers, the idle stop and spending limits help.
- Machines run on verified hosts around the world. Each offer shows its measured reliability; keep copies of important files.
Questions
Is there a free tier?
No. For learning, Colab’s free tier and Kaggle Notebooks are good free options; rent a GPU here when you need a particular card, long runs, or files that stay.
Can I use my Colab notebooks unchanged?
Mostly. Notebooks are standard Jupyter files; only Colab-specific parts, such as mounting Google Drive, need replacing.
Do students get a discount?
A teacher can start a class, hand out credits and set limits, and verified college classes can get extra credits on top-ups.