AWS EC2 vs IONOS Cloud
AWS EC2 and IONOS Cloud both rent plain cloud VMs that you set up yourself. EC2 has far more regions, chips and instance types; IONOS is a smaller German cloud with simple fixed-size Cubes billed by the minute and 2 TB of free outgoing traffic a month.
The companies and products
AWS EC2
AWS EC2 is Amazon's general-purpose cloud VM service, not a sandbox product: you rent virtual servers by the second and set them up yourself.
You pick an instance type (Intel, AMD, Graviton Arm, GPU or Mac), a machine image and a network, and EC2 boots a Nitro VM with its own kernel and root access. Disks are EBS volumes, inbound traffic goes through security groups, and anything agent-specific (agents, desktops, HTTPS URLs, key handling) is yours to build. It is built for every kind of server workload, from websites to GPU training, across AWS's worldwide regions.
IONOS Cloud
IONOS Cloud is the public cloud of IONOS, a German hosting company in the United Internet group. It is a hyperscaler-style IaaS cloud, not an agent sandbox.
You rent KVM virtual machines: Cubes (fixed sizes from 1 to 16 vCPU with a local NVMe disk, billed by the minute), vCPU servers up to 60 vCPU and 230 GB of RAM, Dedicated Core servers and H200 GPU VMs. You build them in the Data Center Designer or through the Cloud API, SDKs and Terraform, next to block storage, private networks, firewalls and managed services. It is for teams that want to run their own servers in Germany, the rest of Europe or the US, and set up everything on them themselves.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “5th cheapest of 364” means 4 of the other 363 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | AWS EC2: price rank | IONOS Cloud: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give you a root Linux VM and nothing agent-specific, so you build the agent setup, preview URLs and cloning yourself; boat ranks 3rd because it ships them. | 87th of 367, with limits $775 a month | 64th of 367, with limits $492 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 114th of 366, with limits $646 a month | 107th of 366, with limits $540 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 102nd of 345, with limits $165 a month | 53rd of 345, with limits $27 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month 300 sandboxes at once needs a raised quota on EC2 and is not confirmed on IONOS, which does not publish its limits; boat ranks 1st here. | 70th of 361, with limits $607 a month | 35th of 361, with limits $182 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month Both clouds fit RL rollouts better than boat, whose starts per day cap large bursts; IONOS ranks 9th and EC2 13th on list price. | 13th of 360, with limits $830 a month | 9th of 360, with limits $740 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month EC2 ranks 5th and fits agent evals fully, while IONOS ranks 93rd as a compromise; boat ranks 10th. | 5th cheapest of 364 $177 a month | 93rd of 364, with limits $137 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month IONOS ranks 1st for CI runners on price, with EC2 21st and boat 4th; all three fit. | 21st cheapest of 377 $255 a month | Cheapest of 377 $60 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box that stays on all month is cheap on IONOS, which ranks 9th; EC2 ranks 59th and boat 18th. | 59th cheapest of 368 $76 a month | 9th cheapest of 368 $20 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Neither cloud has a desktop or computer-use API on Linux, so you install and stream one yourself; boat streams a 60fps desktop and ranks 6th. | 103rd of 369, with limits $195 a month | 86th of 369, with limits $137 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 165th of 367, with limits $101 a month | 156th of 367, with limits $74 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 195th of 346, with limits $116 a month | 153rd of 346, with limits $40 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 82nd of 338, with limits $2,046 a month | 39th of 338, with limits $897 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 108th of 360, with limits $45 a month | 105th of 360, with limits $38 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month EC2 rents Nvidia GPU instances from L4 up to H100; IONOS rents H200 VMs with 1 to 8 GPUs; boat has no GPUs. | 25th cheapest of 98 $1,723 a month | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | AWS EC2 | IONOS Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | General cloud VMs from a hyperscaler, with hundreds of instance types | General cloud servers (Cubes, vCPU and Dedicated Core servers) plus storage, networks and managed services | Sandboxes for AI agents, made and driven through an API |
| Isolation | Every instance is a Nitro VM with its own kernel | Every server is a KVM VM with its own kernel | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Docker, root and systemd on any instance; /dev/kvm only on C8i, M8i, R8i and metal instances | Root Linux VM where you install Docker; running your own VMs inside is not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm ready on every machine |
| Billing | Per second with a 60 second minimum; disks and public IPv4 billed on top | Cubes by the minute at a fixed rate per size, NVMe disk included | Monthly plan from $20 that becomes credit spent per second |
| Stopping a machine | Stopping ends instance charges; the EBS disk and public IPv4 keep billing | Suspended Cubes keep billing; you snapshot and delete a Cube to stop paying; a stopped vCPU server stops compute billing | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots and copies | Manual or scheduled EBS snapshots; a copy means making an image and booting a new instance; hibernation keeps memory | Manual full snapshots of one volume, usable only in the same location; new VMs boot from them | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop; fork a running sandbox in one call |
| Coding agents | None preinstalled; you drive agents over SSH or Systems Manager | None in the VM; an MCP server lets your AI client manage IONOS resources | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credential proxy; IAM role credentials are read from inside the instance | None; you put secrets into the VM yourself | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Desktop and computer use | Linux images have no desktop; Windows instances have Remote Desktop; no computer-use API | None; a remote console for troubleshooting servers | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 at $0.005 an hour and any port via security groups; HTTPS needs your own domain, certificate and load balancer | Public IP on each VM and any port you open; reserved IPv4 billed per 30 days; load balancers | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Outbound network rules | Security groups, plus domain allowlists with AWS Network Firewall or DNS Firewall (paid) | Network Security Groups with egress rules by IP, port and protocol | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs | Nvidia GPU instances, from L4 and L40S up to H100 and H200 | NVIDIA H200 PCIe VMs, 1 to 8 GPUs, in Frankfurt and Worcester | None |
| Operating systems and CPUs | Linux and Windows on Intel, AMD and Graviton Arm; macOS on Mac Dedicated Hosts | Linux and Windows Server (licence billed per vCPU); no Arm or macOS | Linux on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts; Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | 39 regions worldwide, including several in the EU | Germany, UK, France, Spain and the US | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | AWS EC2 | IONOS Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | Yes | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Not published | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for AWS EC2 or IONOS Cloud: neither was in the public benchmark we use. In that run, StarSling's Node.js build-and-test test on 2026-09-29, boat did 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. EC2 speed depends on the instance family you pick, and the IONOS CPU model varies by location.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. AWS EC2 and IONOS Cloud have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | AWS EC2, a month | IONOS Cloud, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $21 · Pay-as-you-go (no platform fee) | $5 · Pay as you go | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $51 · Pay-as-you-go (no platform fee) · with limits | $20 · Pay as you go | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $944 · Pay-as-you-go (no platform fee) | $240 · Pay as you go | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $269 · Pay-as-you-go (no platform fee) | $74 · Pay as you go · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $502 · Pay-as-you-go (no platform fee) | $148 · Pay as you go · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
AWS EC2: EC2 bills each instance per second (60 second minimum) at its list rate, here the Graviton c7g sizes on demand. EBS disks and public IPv4 bill on top, also while stopped, and the lowest always-on rate needs a 3-year commitment.
IONOS Cloud: IONOS bills Cubes by the minute at a fixed rate per size, with the NVMe disk included. Suspended Cubes keep billing, so the low workday figure assumes you snapshot and delete the machine each night.
IONOS Cloud: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
A new AWS account can run only 5 vCPUs of standard On-Demand instances per region, so 50 agents in parallel or 300 sandboxes for your users need a quota raise first. IONOS does not publish how many machines an account can run at once, so 300 sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs at once are not confirmed there; you ask IONOS Cloud Support. One agent that never stops reaches EC2's price only with a 3-year commitment. On boat, the 1,000-job burst is queued: the $2,000 plan allows 90 starts a minute, 600 an hour and 2,400 a day.
| Scenario | AWS EC2 | IONOS Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once | None that bite |
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use AWS EC2 when
you need regions outside Europe, many GPU sizes, Arm or macOS, domain allowlists, or very large bursts of short jobs.
- Regions, chips and macOS. Pick EC2 if you need machines on every continent, Graviton Arm chips or macOS hosts, which IONOS does not offer.
- More GPU choice. Pick EC2 if you want many GPU sizes, from a single L4 up to H100 and H200 instances.
- Domain allowlists and hibernation. Pick EC2 if code may only reach chosen domains, or a machine must resume with its memory intact.
Use IONOS Cloud when
you want plain servers from a German company at low list prices, billed by the minute, with 2 TB of free outgoing traffic a month.
- Simple per-minute Cubes. Pick IONOS if you want fixed-size VMs with the NVMe disk included, billed by the minute at lower list prices.
- Free outgoing traffic. Pick IONOS if your machines send a lot of data: the first 2 TB out each month cost nothing.
- A German company. Pick IONOS if you want a cloud run by a German hosting company, with data centers in Berlin and Frankfurt.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is AI agents, both EC2 and IONOS hand you an empty VM and leave the agent setup, desktop, URLs and key handling to you. boat is a sandbox made for agents: every machine is a full VM that already has them, and a stopped one costs nothing.
Agents driven from outside, keys kept outside
On EC2 and IONOS you install each agent, write the code that prompts and watches it, and put real API keys inside the VM. boat preinstalls the agents with a prompt, steer and events API, and its credentials proxy keeps keys out.
Snapshots every minute, forks and free stops
A stopped EC2 instance still bills its disk and IPv4, and a suspended IONOS Cube keeps billing unless you snapshot and delete it. boat snapshots every minute, forks a running sandbox, and a stopped one costs nothing.
Desktop, /dev/kvm and HTTPS URLs ready
Neither cloud gives a Linux VM a desktop for computer use, /dev/kvm only works on some EC2 types, and HTTPS needs your own domain and certificate. boat has a 60fps desktop, /dev/kvm and HTTPS URLs on 50 ports.
Use boat when the machines are for AI agents: coding agents you drive by API, keys kept outside, a desktop and browser, HTTPS URLs, and snapshots every minute with free stops. Compare it one to one: boat vs AWS EC2 and boat vs IONOS Cloud.
Questions people ask
Is IONOS Cloud cheaper than AWS EC2?
On list price, yes, in every scenario we priced. 50 agents in parallel come to $240 a month on IONOS against $944 on EC2, and one agent running all month to $20 against $51, which on EC2 needs a 3-year commitment. IONOS's workday figure assumes you delete the machine each night.
Which is faster, AWS EC2 or IONOS Cloud?
We have no comparable measurement for either one; neither was in the public benchmark we use. EC2 speed depends on the instance family, and the IONOS CPU model varies by location. boat did 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in that benchmark.
Can AWS EC2 and IONOS Cloud run Docker?
Yes, both give you a root Linux VM where you install Docker. Running your own VMs inside works on EC2 only on C8i, M8i, R8i and metal instances, and is not documented on IONOS. On boat, Docker and /dev/kvm are ready on every machine.
Does a stopped machine cost money?
On EC2, stopping ends instance charges but the EBS disk and public IPv4 keep billing. IONOS says suspended Cubes continue to incur costs, so you snapshot and delete a Cube to stop paying. On boat a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Do both have GPUs?
Yes. EC2 rents Nvidia GPU instances from L4 up to H100 and H200, and IONOS rents H200 VMs with 1 to 8 GPUs in Frankfurt and Worcester. boat has no GPUs.
Where do they run?
EC2 runs in 39 regions worldwide, including several in the EU. IONOS runs in Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the US. boat runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France), with EU data residency.
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