Azure Virtual Machines vs IONOS Cloud
Both rent plain cloud VMs with their own kernel that you set up yourself. Azure is Microsoft's hyperscaler, with 77 regions and hundreds of sizes, while IONOS Cloud is a German host with a smaller set of servers in Europe and the US, simple per-minute Cubes and 2 TB of free outgoing traffic a month.
The companies and products
Azure Virtual Machines
Azure Virtual Machines is Microsoft's general-purpose cloud VM service: you rent Linux or Windows machines by the minute in Azure regions worldwide.
It is a hyperscaler IaaS product, not a sandbox API. Each VM runs on Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor with its own kernel, root and SSH, and you pick from hundreds of sizes, including Arm, burstable and GPU families. Networking, disks, images, firewalls and any agent tooling are separate pieces you set up yourself, so it suits teams that already run on Azure and want full control.
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. “3rd cheapest of 364” means 2 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 | Azure Virtual Machines: 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 | 83rd of 367, with limits $730 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 An always-on assistant fits on either cloud, but you wire up the agent, its keys and its desktop yourself; boat ranks 5th. | 113th of 366, with limits $644 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 IONOS fits short code runs better than Azure (53rd against 114th) as long as you can create and delete VMs quickly through its API. | 114th of 345, with limits $222 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 Neither cloud gives you a sandbox layer for your users, and IONOS does not publish how many machines can run at once; boat ranks 1st here. | 63rd of 361, with limits $500 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 do well for RL rollouts (IONOS 9th, Azure 19th), since large fleets of plain VMs are what they rent; boat is 34th. | 19th of 360, with limits $1,039 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 Azure Virtual Machines ranks 3rd for agent evals, a full fit thanks to per-minute billing and many sizes; IONOS is 93rd and boat is 10th. | 3rd cheapest of 364 $173 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 Cloud ranks first of 377 for CI runners, with per-minute Cubes and no plan fee; Azure is 35th and boat is 4th. | 35th cheapest of 377 $335 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 a plain VM job, and IONOS is 9th here against 72nd for Azure and 18th for boat. | 72nd cheapest of 368 $94 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 Azure nor IONOS has a desktop stream or computer-use tools, so you install and stream a desktop yourself; boat is 6th with one on every machine. | 100th of 369, with limits $192 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 | 168th of 367, with limits $107 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 | 194th 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 | 81st of 338, with limits $2,044 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 | 110th of 360, with limits $46 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 | 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 Virtual Machines | IONOS Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | General cloud VMs; images, networking and tooling are yours to set up | General cloud servers (Cubes, vCPU and Dedicated Core servers) plus storage, networks and managed services | Sandboxes for AI agents: a full VM per sandbox, made and driven by API |
| Isolation | Full Hyper-V VM with its own kernel | KVM VM with its own kernel | Full VM with its own kernel |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root and Docker on any size; nested virtualization on Intel and AMD D and F sizes, not on Arm or B-series | 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 |
| Stopping a machine | Deallocate stops compute billing; disks and static IPs keep billing; a shutdown from inside the OS keeps billing compute | Suspended Cubes keep billing; to stop paying you snapshot and delete the Cube; a stopped vCPU server stops compute billing | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots | Disk snapshots on demand; scheduled snapshots need Azure Backup, a separate paid service | Manual full snapshots of one volume, usable only in the same location | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork and clone | Capture an image (VM stopped first) or snapshot a disk, then boot new VMs cold | Snapshot a disk, then create new VMs from it; disk only, no memory | Fork a running sandbox in one call |
| Pause with memory | Hibernation on supported sizes up to 64 GB of RAM, triggered by API | Not documented; suspend turns the Cube off | Resume reboots from disk (no memory snapshots) |
| Desktop and computer use | None built in; you install your own VNC or RDP server | None; a remote console for fixing servers | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Coding agents and keys | No agents built in; Key Vault secrets are fetched into the VM, where code can read them | No agents in the VM; an MCP server manages IONOS resources; you put secrets into the VM yourself | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more with a prompt, steer and events API; credentials proxy for any HTTPS API |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 and any port through security group rules; HTTPS is yours to run | Public IP on each VM and any port you open; private LANs and load balancers | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IP |
| Outbound rules | Security groups by IP and port, plus domain allowlists with the paid Azure Firewall | Network Security Groups with egress rules by IP, port and protocol | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs, Windows and CPUs | Nvidia H100 and A100 GPU sizes; Windows and Linux on Intel, AMD and Arm | NVIDIA H200 VMs with 1 to 8 GPUs; Windows Server and Linux | Linux on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts; no GPUs; Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | 77 regions worldwide, available or coming soon | Germany, UK, France, Spain and the US | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Azure Virtual Machines | 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 | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | 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 | Yes | 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 | No | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | 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 Azure Virtual Machines or IONOS Cloud: neither was in the public sandbox benchmark we use, and both offer many CPU types that vary by size or location. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in StarSling's run of 2026-09-29, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Azure Virtual Machines 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 | Azure Virtual Machines, 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 | $26 · Pay-as-you-go subscription (no plan 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 | $48 · Pay-as-you-go subscription (no plan 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 | $1,168 · Pay-as-you-go subscription (no plan 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 | $225 · Pay-as-you-go subscription (no plan 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 | $483 · Pay-as-you-go subscription (no plan fee) · with limits | $148 · Pay as you go · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Azure Virtual Machines: Azure bills each VM per full minute while it runs, with no plan fee; disks, public IPv4 addresses and egress past 100 GB a month are extra, and disks keep billing while the VM is deallocated. The always-on price in the table needs a 3-year reservation, billed every hour whether the VM runs or not.
IONOS Cloud: IONOS bills Cubes by the minute at a fixed rate per size with the NVMe disk included, and vCPU servers per core and per GB of RAM. 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
Azure caps vCPUs per region and per VM family, stopped VMs still count, and new subscriptions start low until you ask for more. IONOS does not publish how many machines an account can run at once, so 300 sandboxes for your users and 1,000 short jobs at once are not confirmed there. For the 1,000-job burst, the Azure figure uses burstable B-series VMs that guarantee 30% of each vCPU, and boat queues starts above 90 a minute. One IONOS Cube tops out at 16 vCPU and 64 GB, and a vCPU server at 60 vCPU and 230 GB.
| Scenario | Azure Virtual Machines | 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 |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Azure Virtual Machines when
you need a region outside Europe and the US, Arm or burstable sizes, hibernation, Spot pricing, domain-based outbound rules, or your company already runs on Azure.
- Regions and sizes almost everywhere. Useful if you need a region outside Europe and the US, or Arm, burstable and GPU sizes in one place.
- Hibernation and Spot. Useful if a machine must resume with its memory, or a big batch can survive eviction with 30 seconds of notice.
- Domain allowlists for outbound traffic. Useful if agents may only reach a fixed list of sites: Azure Firewall can limit outbound HTTPS by domain.
Use IONOS Cloud when
you want plain VMs from a German provider at low list prices, simple per-minute Cubes, lots of free outgoing traffic, or H200 GPUs in Frankfurt and Worcester.
- Simple per-minute servers. Useful if you want fixed-size Cubes with the NVMe disk included, billed by the minute with no plan fee.
- 2 TB of free outgoing traffic. Useful if your machines send a lot of data out: the first 2 TB each month cost nothing, against 100 GB on Azure.
- A German company with H200 GPUs. Useful if you want a German provider with servers in Europe and the US, and H200 GPU VMs in Frankfurt and Worcester.
Where boat fits
Azure and IONOS both rent empty VMs, which is right for servers, GPUs and Windows. If what you are really running is agents, each of them needs the same layer built on top: agents driven from outside, a desktop, keys kept out, snapshots and forks. boat gives every sandbox that layer on a full VM in the EU.
Coding agents you drive from outside
On Azure or IONOS you install each agent, copy real API keys into the VM and write the code that prompts and watches it. boat ships the agents with a prompt, steer and events API and keeps keys outside in its credentials proxy.
A desktop for computer use
Neither Azure nor IONOS has a desktop stream: Azure leaves you a VNC or RDP server to install, and IONOS only has a remote console for repairs. Every boat sandbox streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium.
Snapshots every minute, forks of a running machine
On Azure a copy means stopping, capturing an image and booting cold; on IONOS a snapshot is a manual full copy, and suspended Cubes keep billing. boat snapshots every minute, forks a running sandbox in one call, and a stopped sandbox is free.
Use boat when the machines are for AI agents: full VMs with Docker and /dev/kvm, coding agents you drive from outside, a desktop, keys kept out of the machine, snapshots every minute, forks and free stops. Compare it one to one: boat vs Azure Virtual Machines and boat vs IONOS Cloud.
Questions people ask
Is Azure Virtual Machines cheaper than IONOS Cloud?
No, IONOS's list prices are lower in every scenario we priced: one agent running all month is $20 on IONOS and $48 on Azure (with a 3-year reservation), and 50 agents in parallel come to $240 against $1,168. boat comes to $26 and $317 for the same two. IONOS's workday figure of $5 assumes you delete the Cube each night.
Which is faster, Azure or IONOS?
We have no comparable measurement for either: both were left out of the public sandbox benchmark we use, and their CPUs depend on the size or location you pick. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can Azure and IONOS VMs run Docker?
Yes, both give you a root Linux VM where Docker runs. Azure supports nested virtualization on Intel and AMD D and F sizes, while IONOS does not document running VMs inside. boat has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm ready on every machine.
Do Azure and IONOS keep billing when a machine is stopped?
Partly. Azure stops compute billing only after a deallocate, and disks and static IPs keep billing. IONOS says suspended Cubes continue to incur costs, so you snapshot and delete them to stop paying. A stopped boat sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Which has more regions?
Azure lists 77 regions worldwide. IONOS has data centers in Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the US. boat runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France), with EU data residency.
Can I use Azure or IONOS as sandboxes for AI agents?
Yes, both give each agent a full VM with its own kernel, which isolates code well. Neither gives you the sandbox layer: agents driven by API, a desktop stream, a keys proxy, minute snapshots and forks. On boat those come with every sandbox.
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