Blaxel vs Claude Managed Agents
Blaxel rents you sandboxes: Firecracker microVMs that sleep seconds after the last connection and wake in under 25 ms, for any code or agent you bring. Claude Managed Agents is Anthropic's hosted agent: you send Claude a task and it works in a small container that Anthropic runs.
The companies and products
Blaxel
Blaxel is a San Francisco company that runs cloud infrastructure for AI agents, and since September 2026 it is part of Baseten.
You get sandboxes, batch jobs, MCP server hosting and a model gateway. Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel that drops to standby when nothing is connected and resumes in under 25 ms with its memory and running processes. It is built for agent products that start many sandboxes and want them asleep most of the time.
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, founded 2024
Claude Managed Agents
Claude Managed Agents is Anthropic's ready-made agent harness: Claude runs as an autonomous agent in a cloud sandbox that Anthropic manages, and you talk to it through an events API.
This is an agent platform, not a sandbox you rent. You define an agent (model, prompt, tools, MCP servers, skills) and an environment, then start sessions, send messages as events and stream back what Claude does; the harness handles tool calls, prompt caching and compaction. Each session gets its own Ubuntu container, or runs its tools on a worker you host yourself. It is built for teams that want Claude doing long tasks without building their own agent loop or sandbox.
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. “10th cheapest of 367” means 9 of the other 366 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 | Blaxel: price rank | Claude Managed Agents: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Blaxel fits a coding agent with Docker and a microVM, while Managed Agents gives it a container with up to 8 GB of memory and Docker only in limited availability; boat adds /dev/kvm and a disk that stays. | 10th cheapest of 367 $2,373 a month | 106th of 367, with limits $964 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Both let mostly idle assistants sleep cheaply: Blaxel wakes in under 25 ms, Managed Agents on the next message, but Managed Agents keeps sandbox state only 30 days after creation. | 12th cheapest of 366 $2,832 a month | 219th of 366, with limits $2,511 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 Blaxel is built for short runs that sleep right away and resume in milliseconds, and Managed Agents bills runtime only while working but adds model tokens on top. | 14th cheapest of 345 $144 a month | 163rd of 345, with limits $756 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 Blaxel gives each port a preview URL your users can open but its public tiers stop at 200 at once, Managed Agents has no inbound ports, and boat fits 300 at once with URLs on up to 50 ports. | 101st of 361, with limits $926 a month | 231st of 361, with limits $823 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 | 77th of 360, with limits $4,378 a month | 252nd of 360, with limits $3,978 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 Blaxel's public tiers cap you at 200 sandboxes at once, Managed Agents limits creates to 300 per minute, and boat starts a fresh VM per task from a named snapshot. | 136th of 364, with limits $704 a month | 244th of 364, with limits $320 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 | 57th cheapest of 377 $431 a month | 227th of 377, with limits $96 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Neither has native SSH: Blaxel connects through bl connect and Managed Agents only through the session API, while boat is a plain machine you SSH into and leave on. | 265th of 368, with limits $114 a month | 224th of 368, with limits $48 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 Blaxel runs a desktop and a browser for computer use, Managed Agents ships only headless Chromium with Playwright, and boat streams a full desktop at 60fps. | 14th cheapest of 369 $634 a month | 127th of 369, with limits $288 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 | 16th cheapest of 367 $317 a month | 126th of 367, with limits $288 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 | 16th cheapest of 346 $215 a month | 127th of 346, with limits $390 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 | 147th of 338, with limits $4,292 a month | 155th of 338, with limits $4,798 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 Blaxel fits with root and domain-level egress rules, while Managed Agents is a compromise because root is not documented and it has no inbound ports. | 3rd cheapest of 360 $217 a month | 179th of 360, with limits $160 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 | Blaxel | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A sandbox platform: microVMs you start by API, plus batch jobs, MCP hosting and a model gateway | A hosted Claude agent: Anthropic's harness runs Claude in a sandbox and you send it events | A sandbox platform: each agent gets its own full Linux machine, with coding agents built in |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM, own kernel | Isolated Linux container per session | Full VM, own kernel, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine size | 4 vCPU / 8 GB and up; up to 256 GB on a custom plan | Up to 8 GB memory and 10 GB disk; vCPU not published; not configurable | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above |
| Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm | Docker with a Docker-in-sandbox image; no /dev/kvm in Firecracker guests | Docker listed as limited availability; root, systemd and /dev/kvm not documented | Root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Files and disk | Files live in memory (about half the RAM); one block volume can be attached at creation | Sandbox checkpointed when a session goes idle; state kept only 30 days after the sandbox is created | A real disk, saved every minute and on stop, for as long as you keep the sandbox |
| Sleep and wake | Standby a few seconds after the last connection; wakes in under 25 ms with memory and processes | Idle session resumes from its checkpoint on the next message; idle time is not billed | Stop keeps the disk and costs nothing; resume boots the VM again |
| Fork | Fork with memory and running processes (private preview) | No fork or clone of a session or sandbox | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Inbound traffic | Preview URL per port, public or token-protected; no raw TCP or public IP | No inbound ports; reached only through the sessions and events API | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP |
| SSH | No native SSH; terminal through the bl connect command | No SSH | Real SSH with root |
| Browser and desktop | Browser, desktop and computer use | Headless Chromium with Playwright; no desktop or computer-use tool | Full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, with Chromium and computer use |
| Agents | Claude Code image you drive from its terminal or your own harness | Anthropic's harness with Claude models, steering, interrupts, multiagent threads, memory stores and webhooks | Claude Code, Codex and five more preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Outbound rules | Domain allow and deny lists, method and path rules, static egress IPs | Unrestricted, or limited to listed hosts plus optional package registries and MCP servers | Open internet; filter inside the VM with nftables |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Proxy fills secrets into outbound HTTPS requests (public preview) | Vault secrets sit in the sandbox as placeholders and are swapped in at egress, per host | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Regions | Oregon, North Virginia, London, Frankfurt | US workspace geo only | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Blaxel | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | No | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No | 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 | No | 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 | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | Yes | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Yes | No | Yes |
Performance
On the same Node.js build-and-test benchmark at 4 vCPU and 8 GB, boat ran 26.69 runs per second and Blaxel 19.48, so boat does about 1.4 times the work in the same time. Managed Agents was not part of that run, and Anthropic does not publish how many vCPUs its sandbox gets, so there is no comparable number for it.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Blaxel measured on: Sandbox (active time, RAM-only pricing, CPU bundled). Claude Managed Agents has 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 | Blaxel, a month | Claude Managed Agents, 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 | $33 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 1 | $13 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $120 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 1 | $53 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $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 | $1,489 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 1 | $634 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $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 | $396 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 2 · with limits | $360 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $876 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 2 · with limits | $796 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Blaxel: Blaxel charges for allocated RAM per second while a sandbox is active, with CPU included. In standby you pay only snapshot storage, and tiers are unlocked by top-ups that go into your wallet as credit.
Claude Managed Agents: Managed Agents bills model tokens at API rates plus a session runtime fee that accrues only while a session is running, including time waiting on the model. The table shows runtime only; tokens come on top and usually cost more.
Claude Managed Agents: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit billed per second while a sandbox runs. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Blaxel's self-serve tiers allow 10, 50 or 200 sandboxes at once, and sandboxes in standby count, so the 300-user and 1,000-job scenarios need a sales tier. A Managed Agents sandbox has up to 8 GB of memory and 10 GB of disk with no published vCPU count, so no scenario counts as a clean fit; it publishes no concurrency cap, only 300 creates per minute and usage-tier spend limits that pause all API use. boat fits four scenarios, but at 1,000 short jobs at once it queues starts above 90 per minute.
| Scenario | Blaxel | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | 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 |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Blaxel when
you run your own agent or code in many sandboxes that sit idle most of the time and must wake in milliseconds, or must run in the US.
- Wakes in milliseconds with its memory. For sandboxes that sit idle most of the time: one sleeps seconds after the last connection and wakes in under 25 ms.
- Any code or agent you bring. Teams with their own agent or model get a general sandbox, with a preview URL per port to open what it runs.
- Fine network rules. Teams with strict egress needs can allow domains down to methods and paths, and get static egress IPs.
Use Claude Managed Agents when
you want Claude itself to do long tasks with no harness to build, idle time that costs nothing, and the option to run tools on your own workers.
- No agent loop to build. Teams that want Claude doing long tasks get the harness, caching, compaction, memory and webhooks ready to use.
- Idle sessions wake on the next message. Agents that wait long between messages pay runtime only while working, and resume with no separate start call.
- Tools on your own workers. Teams that must keep files and traffic in house can run every tool call on workers they host.
Where boat fits
Blaxel is built for sandboxes that mostly sleep, and Managed Agents for Claude working in a small container. If your agents do hours of real work, with builds, Docker, emulators and apps you want to open, boat gives each one a whole Linux VM with a disk that stays and any agent you choose.
A whole Linux machine
Without /dev/kvm an Android emulator or VM never starts, and neither Blaxel's Firecracker guests nor a Managed Agents container offer it. Blaxel also has no native SSH, and Managed Agents leaves root and systemd undocumented.
A disk that stays
Blaxel keeps files in memory, about half the RAM, unless you attach a volume at creation. Managed Agents drops sandbox state 30 days after creation, so setup runs again. boat saves the whole disk every minute.
Open ports and any agent
Managed Agents has no inbound ports and runs only Claude in its harness. Blaxel has preview URLs but no raw TCP, and no API to drive agents, so you build the harness. boat has both.
Use boat when your agents need a real machine: Docker, emulators, a desktop, ports you can open, a disk that lasts, and the choice of Claude Code, Codex or other agents. Compare it one to one: boat vs Blaxel and boat vs Claude Managed Agents.
Questions people ask
Is Blaxel cheaper than Claude Managed Agents?
For runtime alone, Managed Agents costs less in all five scenarios we priced: $13 against $33 for one agent on workdays, and $634 against $1,489 for 50 agents in parallel. But model tokens come on top for Managed Agents and usually cost more than the runtime. boat is $20 and $317 for those two.
Which is faster, Blaxel or Claude Managed Agents?
Only Blaxel was measured: 19.48 runs per second on the Node.js build-and-test benchmark at 4 vCPU and 8 GB, against 26.69 for boat. Anthropic does not publish the vCPU count of a Managed Agents sandbox, and much of a session's time goes to waiting on the model.
Can Blaxel or Claude Managed Agents run Docker?
Blaxel can, with its Docker-in-sandbox image. Managed Agents lists Docker as limited availability. Neither gives you /dev/kvm for Android emulators or VMs, which boat exposes in every sandbox.
Can I run Claude Code on Blaxel or Claude Managed Agents?
Blaxel has a Claude Code image you drive from its terminal or your own harness. Managed Agents runs Anthropic's own harness with Claude models, not Claude Code. On boat, Claude Code, Codex and five other agents come preinstalled and you drive them from outside through one API.
How long do they keep my files?
Blaxel keeps sandboxes in standby for good on Tier 2 and up, but deletes them after 7 or 30 days on Tiers 0 and 1. Managed Agents keeps sandbox state only 30 days after the sandbox is created. boat keeps the whole disk until you delete the sandbox.
Where do Blaxel and Claude Managed Agents run?
Blaxel runs in Oregon, North Virginia, London and Frankfurt. Managed Agents stores data and runs code in a US workspace geo only. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
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