Azure Container Apps Sandboxes vs Islo
Both give each agent a microVM with its own kernel that can pause with its memory. Azure is a building block inside your Azure account, in 40 regions, while Islo is made for coding agents, with a gateway that controls and logs every outbound call.
The companies and products
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes is a service inside Microsoft Azure that gives each agent or user an isolated microVM you create, suspend and resume through an SDK.
It is part of Azure Container Apps, the hyperscaler's serverless container platform, and lives in your Azure subscription as a sandbox group resource. Each sandbox boots from an OCI image or a snapshot, has its own kernel, and can be suspended with its memory and resumed in under a second. It is built for teams already on Azure that want stateful code execution with Azure networking, identity and billing.
Islo
Islo is an agent sandbox from Incredibuild: each coding agent gets its own microVM, with network rules and credentials handled at a gateway.
An Islo sandbox is a Linux microVM with its own kernel, built from a container image, with Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled. Outbound traffic can pass through a gateway that allows or blocks hosts, injects credentials and logs every request. It is built for teams that run coding agents, evals and RL rollouts in the background, on Islo's cloud or in their own cloud account.
- Launched
- May 4, 2026
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. “34th cheapest of 345” means 33 of the other 344 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 | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes: price rank | Islo: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory runs Docker builds and emulators for hours; Islo runs Docker inside, Azure needs an image that ships it, and only boat has /dev/kvm. | 288th of 367, with limits $5,276 a month | 326th of 367, with limits $7,402 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Islo fits an assistant that lives on its machine all month and pauses it when idle, while on Azure a sandbox that never stops only gets close with a 3-year commitment. | 302nd of 366, with limits $6,544 a month | 30th cheapest of 366 $9,928 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 Azure fits short code runs well, since a sandbox suspends with its memory and resumes in under a second, while Islo's 50 running sandboxes on Team limit big bursts. | 34th cheapest of 345 $354 a month | 153rd of 345, with limits $503 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 Azure fits sandboxes for your users at 300 at once, which is more than Islo's Team plan allows; boat fits too and gives each user hosting on up to 50 ports. | 22nd cheapest of 361 $2,260 a month | 171st of 361, with limits $3,160 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 | 153rd of 360, with limits $10,740 a month | 167th of 360, with limits $15,265 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 Azure fits large eval runs with its default quota of 500 active cores, while Islo has a Harbor integration and gateway rules that stop trials from looking up answers. | 75th cheapest of 364 $1,728 a month | 198th of 364, with limits $2,456 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 | 103rd cheapest of 377 $1,046 a month | 119th cheapest of 377 $1,507 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box wants SSH; Islo offers SSH through its CLI, Azure gives a shell through its own CLI and portal, and boat gives a plain SSH endpoint. | 322nd of 368, with limits $262 a month | 112th cheapest of 368 $402 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 Computer-use agents need a screen, and both Azure and Islo sandboxes are headless; boat streams a 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium. | 279th of 369, with limits $1,573 a month | 310th of 369, with limits $2,210 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 Islo has a browser inside the sandbox for testing, Azure ships no browser image, and boat adds a visible desktop and a computer-use API. | 288th of 367, with limits $795 a month | 113th of 367, with limits $1,105 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 | 284th of 346, with limits $561 a month | 66th cheapest of 346 $748 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 | 239th of 338, with limits $10,956 a month | 265th of 338, with limits $14,966 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 | 278th of 360, with limits $517 a month | 47th of 360, with limits $746 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 | Can't run it | 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 | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | Islo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | MicroVM per sandbox with its own kernel | MicroVM per sandbox with its own kernel | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Docker inside | Depends on the image: azure-dev ships Docker on systemd; the default ubuntu image has only Buildah | Docker inside and sudo | Docker, systemd and root on every sandbox |
| Nested virtualization | Not documented | Not documented | Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Getting a shell | Interactive shell through the aca CLI, SDK or portal; no SSH | SSH and port-forward through the Islo CLI | SSH endpoint on every sandbox, plus CLI and API exec |
| Desktop, browser and computer use | Headless; no desktop or managed browser | A browser inside the sandbox for testing; no desktop or computer-use API | Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, Chromium and a computer-use API |
| Inbound access | Public HTTPS routes per published port; private endpoint from your VNet at extra cost; no public IP | HTTPS share links anyone with the URL can open, expiring after a TTL (24 hours by default) | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; its own IP |
| Pause and resume | Suspend with memory and disk; resume in under a second; wakes on network traffic or a start command | Pause keeps files, processes and memory; resumes on the next exec, file access or webhook | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing; resume boots from disk |
| Fork | Snapshot a running sandbox with its memory and start new ones from it | Snapshot a running sandbox's files and start new ones from it | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Outbound rules | Egress policy that allows, denies, rewrites or adds headers by host, path and method; VNet integration | Gateway rules by host, path and method, with default deny, rate limits, content filters and a log of every request | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist |
| Keeping keys out of the sandbox | Group secrets usable in egress header rules; Copilot and Anthropic tokens are injected into the sandbox at startup | Gateway injects stored credentials into outbound requests; credentials never reach the sandbox | Credentials proxy for model keys and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Coding agents | Copilot CLI and Claude Code images, run through the exec API | Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled; factory lines with steer and events, run on a schedule, webhook or GitHub, Slack and Linear events | Seven agents preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Sandboxes at once | 500 concurrent active cores by default; more by Azure support request | Free 5 and Team 50 running sandboxes per launch coverage; paused ones do not count; more by contract | 100 to 2,000 running sandboxes by plan, self-serve |
| Where it runs | 40 Azure regions, 9 of them in the EU | US West, or inside your own cloud account with BYOC | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | Islo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | No | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | Yes | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | Yes | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Yes | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Not published | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Not published | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for Azure Container Apps Sandboxes or for Islo: neither was in StarSling's public sandbox benchmark run. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. Until the other two are measured on the same test, this page makes no speed claim between them.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Azure Container Apps Sandboxes and Islo 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 | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes, a month | Islo, 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 | $68 · Pay-as-you-go | $101 · Free | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $262 · Pay-as-you-go · with limits | $420 · Free | $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 | $3,421 · Pay-as-you-go | $4,863 · Team | $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 | $989 · Pay-as-you-go | $1,382 · Team · 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 | $2,148 · Pay-as-you-go | $3,053 · Team · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes: Azure bills per second on the Container Apps Consumption meters for the vCPU and memory of the sandbox's tier while it runs, with no plan fee. An idle sandbox keeps billing until auto-suspend, 5 minutes by default, and some regions such as West Europe charge more.
Islo: Islo bills each CPU core and each GB of memory and disk while a sandbox runs, billed per hour, with no plan fee and signup credits with no card. Idle sandboxes bill until a pause-after-idle timer set at creation fires, and egress has no published price.
Islo: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Islo's Team plan is reported at 50 running sandboxes at once, so 300 sandboxes for your users and 1,000 short jobs at once do not fit without a custom contract, while Azure fits both from its default quota of 500 active cores. Azure bills a running sandbox every second, so one agent that never stops only gets close with a 3-year commitment. Islo publishes no egress price, so its totals here leave egress out. boat fits every scenario but the 1,000-job burst, where its plans queue starts.
| Scenario | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | Islo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
|
| 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 Azure Container Apps Sandboxes when
your team already runs on Azure and wants short stateful sandboxes that suspend with memory, wake on traffic, scale to large bursts, or run in many regions.
- Memory suspend, wake on traffic. Good for stateful jobs that sleep between requests: a sandbox resumes in under a second and wakes when traffic arrives.
- Room for big bursts. Good for many short sandboxes at once: 500 active cores by default, so 300 user sandboxes fit without a custom contract.
- Inside Azure, in 40 regions. Good for teams already on Azure: Entra ID, Azure billing and VNets, in 40 regions on six continents.
Use Islo when
you run coding agents in the background and need a gateway that controls and logs every outbound call, keys that never enter the sandbox, or a deployment in your own cloud account.
- A gateway that logs every call. Useful if you must see what agents reach: Islo can deny by default, rate-limit, and log each request to your SIEM.
- Keys that never enter the sandbox. Useful for agents that read untrusted input: the gateway adds credentials to outbound requests, so the sandbox never holds them.
- Built for coding agents, in your cloud. Useful for background agent work: factory lines run agents on schedules or GitHub, Slack and Linear events, on Islo's cloud or yours.
Where boat fits
Azure and Islo both hand an agent a headless microVM for running code. If your agents need a whole computer, with a screen, emulators and ports other people can reach, look at boat. It runs 100 to 2,000 sandboxes at once by plan, with no session cap and no support ticket to grow.
A screen agents can see and use
Both Azure and Islo sandboxes are headless, so a computer-use agent has no desktop to look at. On either one you build a virtual display and a streaming stack into your image and keep it working; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium.
/dev/kvm, Docker and systemd on every sandbox
Neither Azure nor Islo documents nested virtualization, so an Android emulator or a VM of the agent's own will not start. On Azure, Docker also depends on picking an image like azure-dev. boat gives every sandbox root, systemd, Docker and /dev/kvm.
Ports you can host on, plus SSH
Azure has no SSH and publishes HTTPS ports only; Islo's share links are open to anyone with the URL and expire after 24 hours by default. boat serves up to 50 token-protected HTTPS ports, raw TCP and an SSH endpoint.
Use boat when your agents need a whole computer: SSH, Docker, /dev/kvm for emulators, a 60fps desktop, ports you can host on, and up to 2,000 sandboxes at once in the EU. Compare it one to one: boat vs Azure Container Apps Sandboxes and boat vs Islo.
Questions people ask
Is Azure Container Apps Sandboxes cheaper than Islo?
In every scenario we priced, Azure comes out lower: one coding agent on workdays is $68 a month on Azure and $101 on Islo, and 50 agents in parallel are $3,421 against $4,863. boat is lower than both, at $20 and $317 a month for the same two scenarios.
Which is faster, Azure Container Apps Sandboxes or Islo?
We have no comparable CPU measurement for either one, so this page makes no speed claim between them. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in StarSling's benchmark.
Can I run Docker inside Azure Container Apps Sandboxes or Islo?
On Islo, yes: Docker runs inside its microVMs with sudo. On Azure it depends on the image: azure-dev ships Docker on systemd, while the default ubuntu image has only Buildah. boat runs Docker on every sandbox and also exposes /dev/kvm.
Can I SSH into them?
Islo offers SSH and port-forwarding through its CLI. Azure has no SSH and gives a shell through the aca CLI, the SDK or the portal. Every boat sandbox has its own SSH endpoint.
Can both pause a sandbox with its memory?
Yes. Azure suspends with memory and disk and resumes in under a second, waking on network traffic. Islo pauses with files, processes and memory and resumes on the next exec, file access or webhook. boat keeps the disk across stops, but resuming boots the machine again.
Where does my data run?
Azure runs in 40 Azure regions, 9 of them in the EU. Islo runs in US West, or inside your own cloud account with BYOC. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
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