Blaxel vs Freestyle
Blaxel runs small Firecracker microVMs that go to sleep seconds after you disconnect and wake in under 25 ms with their memory. Freestyle gives each agent a whole Linux VM with systemd, Docker and nested virtualization, but on a slower CPU.
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
Freestyle
Freestyle sells full Linux virtual machines for AI agents, built for long running, complex tasks.
Each Freestyle VM is a KVM virtual machine with its own kernel, booted from an Ubuntu base snapshot with systemd, Docker and coding agent CLIs preinstalled. VMs can be paused with their memory, snapshotted while running, forked and woken by the next request, and every VM starts behind a default-deny firewall. It is built for teams that give each agent or each user its own machine, driven from a TypeScript SDK, a CLI or an API.
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 | Freestyle: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Blaxel's CPU did about twice the work of Freestyle's on the same benchmark, and boat's did about 1.4 times Blaxel's, with /dev/kvm for emulators. | 10th cheapest of 367 $2,373 a month | 241st of 367, with limits $3,311 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 12th cheapest of 366 $2,832 a month | 263rd of 366, with limits $4,195 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 fits short code runs best of the three: a sandbox sleeps seconds after the last connection and wakes in under 25 ms. | 14th cheapest of 345 $144 a month | 40th cheapest of 345 $482 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 Freestyle fits 300 users at once on Pro, while Blaxel's self-serve tiers stop at 200 at once; boat fits it on a self-serve plan too. | 101st of 361, with limits $926 a month | 16th cheapest of 361 $1,358 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 | 107th of 360, with limits $6,600 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 Freestyle Pro allows 400 VMs at once, Blaxel's public tiers cap at 200, and boat starts a fresh VM per task from a named snapshot. | 136th of 364, with limits $704 a month | 53rd cheapest of 364 $1,046 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 Freestyle's own docs say CPU-heavy jobs are better served elsewhere, and both Blaxel and boat did more work per second on the CPU benchmark. | 57th cheapest of 377 $431 a month | 168th of 377, with limits $625 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Freestyle is a plain VM with systemd and SSH you can leave on, while Blaxel has no native SSH and keeps files in memory. | 265th of 368, with limits $114 a month | 98th cheapest of 368 $151 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, Freestyle has guides to install them yourself, and boat streams a 60fps desktop with computer use built in. | 14th cheapest of 369 $634 a month | 234th of 369, with limits $940 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 Blaxel and boat have a browser ready, while on Freestyle you install Chromium and a virtual display inside the VM yourself. | 16th cheapest of 367 $317 a month | 257th of 367, with limits $482 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 | 278th of 346, with limits $482 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 | 183rd of 338, with limits $6,560 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 | 3rd cheapest of 360 $217 a month | 272nd of 360, with limits $482 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 | Freestyle | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel | Full KVM virtual machine with its own kernel | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| CPU benchmark (4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 19.48 runs/s | 9.64 runs/s | 26.69 runs/s |
| Nested virtualization | No: Firecracker guests do not get /dev/kvm | Yes, full KVM support inside the VM | Yes: /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and VMs run inside |
| Systemd and SSH | Root, terminal through bl connect, no native SSH | Systemd is pid 1, SSH access | Real SSH, root and systemd |
| Disk | Files live in memory (about half the RAM); one volume can be attached at creation | A disk that stays, billed on its allocated size even while paused | A real disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Sleep and wake | Standby a few seconds after the last connection, wakes in under 25 ms with memory and processes | Pause keeps memory; a VM paused by idle timeout wakes on the next request; no idle timeout unless you set one | Stop keeps the disk; resume boots the machine again |
| Fork | Fork with memory and running processes (private preview) | Clone a running VM without pausing it; snapshots capture memory and disk | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Biggest machine | Larger sizes, up to 256 GB of RAM, on Custom plans only | Up to 32 vCPU / 64 GiB on Pro, 64 / 128 with custom limits | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above |
| Desktop, browser and computer use | Desktop and browser you can control | Guides to install GNOME or Xvfb, VNC and Chromium yourself | Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, Chromium and computer use built in |
| Coding agents | Claude Code image you drive from its terminal or your own harness | claude, codex, opencode and openclaw preinstalled, driven through exec or a terminal | Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Proxy fills secrets into outbound HTTPS requests (public preview) | Credentials injected at the edge for HTTPS headers, Postgres and S3 | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Inbound access | Preview URL per port, public or token-protected; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS on style.dev names or your own domain, forward auth, other public protocols | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP |
| Outbound rules | Domain allow and deny lists, method and path rules, static egress IPs | Default-deny firewall with allow rules by IP, VM, VPC or exact domain | Open internet; filter inside the VM with nftables |
| Regions | US (Oregon, North Virginia), London, Frankfurt | Not listed; the docs name a San Jose, US data center | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with EU data residency |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Blaxel | Freestyle | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | Yes | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | No | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | 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 | Yes | 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 | Yes | 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 | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No | No |
| GPU | No | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | Yes | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | 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 | Yes | Not published | Yes |
Performance
On the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, boat did 26.69 runs per second, Blaxel 19.48 and Freestyle 9.64. Higher is better: Blaxel did about twice Freestyle's work, and boat about 1.4 times Blaxel's and 2.8 times Freestyle's. boat and Blaxel ran in the same run on September 29, 2026, and Freestyle was measured on August 24, 2026.
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).
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 | Freestyle, 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 | $27 · Free | $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 | $159 · 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 | $1,489 · Pay-as-you-go Tier 1 | $2,139 · Pro | $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 | $581 · Pro | $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 | $1,305 · Pro · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Blaxel: Blaxel charges for allocated RAM per second while a sandbox has an open connection, with CPU included. In standby you pay only snapshot storage, and your tier depends on how much you topped up in the last 30 days.
Freestyle: Freestyle bills per second for the vCPU, RAM and disk given to a VM, busy or idle, after monthly allowances. Hobby and Pro set a $50 or $500 monthly minimum that counts as usage, and on Free the allowances are hard stops.
Freestyle: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit. You pay per second while a sandbox runs, and 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 sleeping ones count, so 300 users at once needs a sales tier. Freestyle Pro allows 400 VMs at once, which fits 300 users but not 1,000 short jobs at the same moment. Neither fits 1,000 jobs at once on a self-serve plan, and boat queues starts above 90 a minute on its $2,000 plan. On Freestyle Free the monthly allowances are hard stops, so an agent that runs all month gets paused.
| Scenario | Blaxel | Freestyle | 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 | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
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Which one should you use?
Use Blaxel when
your sandboxes sit idle most of the time and must wake in milliseconds with their memory, or must run in the US or the UK.
- About twice the CPU speed. On the same Node.js benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, Blaxel did 19.48 runs per second and Freestyle 9.64.
- Sleeps on its own, wakes in milliseconds. For sandboxes idle most of the time: Blaxel sleeps seconds after the last connection and wakes in under 25 ms.
- US and European regions. Blaxel runs in Oregon, North Virginia, London and Frankfurt, while Freestyle's docs only name San Jose.
Use Freestyle when
you need a whole Linux machine with systemd and nested virtualization, a default-deny firewall per VM, or more than 16 vCPU in one machine.
- A whole Linux machine. Freestyle VMs have systemd, SSH, Docker and nested virtualization, so Android emulators run where Blaxel's microVMs cannot.
- Bigger machines. Pro VMs go up to 32 vCPU / 64 GiB, and custom limits reach 64 vCPU / 128 GiB.
- Live clones and a default-deny firewall. Freestyle clones a running VM without pausing it, and each VM starts with no network until you allow it.
Where boat fits
Look at boat if your agents do real work for hours: builds, tests, Docker and emulators. Blaxel is quick to wake but has no /dev/kvm and keeps files in memory, and Freestyle is a whole machine on a slower CPU. boat gives you a whole machine on the fastest CPU of the three, with a desktop and agents built in.
A whole machine on a fast CPU
Blaxel has no /dev/kvm or native SSH, so emulators do not start. Freestyle has both, but did 9.64 runs per second against boat's 26.69, so every install, build and test waits almost three times as long.
Agents you drive from outside
On Blaxel you drive Claude Code from its terminal or your own harness, and on Freestyle you start a CLI through exec and parse its output. boat has one API to prompt, steer and follow seven built-in agents.
A disk that stays when you stop
Blaxel keeps files in memory, about half the RAM, and its lower tiers delete sandboxes after 7 or 30 days. Freestyle bills a paused VM's disk. boat saves the disk every minute, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
Use boat when your agents do real work for hours: builds, tests, Docker, emulators, a desktop and a browser, on the fastest CPU of the three, with an API to drive the agents inside from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Blaxel and boat vs Freestyle.
Questions people ask
Is Blaxel cheaper than Freestyle?
Mostly yes. For one agent running all month it is $120 on Blaxel against $159 on Freestyle, and for 50 agents in parallel $1,489 against $2,139. Freestyle is cheaper for one agent on workdays, and for 300 users at once it fits at $581 while Blaxel's self-serve tiers stop at 200. boat costs $26 and $317 in those first two scenarios.
Which is faster, Blaxel or Freestyle?
On the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks CPU test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, Blaxel did 19.48 runs per second and Freestyle 9.64, about twice the work. boat did 26.69. For waking up, Blaxel resumes from standby in under 25 ms.
Can Blaxel or Freestyle run Docker and Android emulators?
Both run Docker. Only Freestyle runs Android emulators, because Firecracker guests on Blaxel do not get /dev/kvm. boat also exposes /dev/kvm in every sandbox.
Do they keep memory when a sandbox sleeps?
Yes, both do. Blaxel goes to standby on its own seconds after the last connection, while Freestyle pauses when you ask or when an idle timeout you set runs out, and wakes on the next request. boat keeps the disk and boots the machine again on resume.
Can I run a browser agent on Blaxel or Freestyle?
On Blaxel, yes, it has a desktop and a browser you can control. On Freestyle you install Chromium, a virtual display and VNC yourself. boat ships a 60fps desktop, Chromium and computer use in every sandbox.
Where do Blaxel and Freestyle run?
Blaxel runs in Oregon, North Virginia, London and Frankfurt. Freestyle does not list regions, and its docs name a San Jose, US data center. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
Try boat
Install the CLI, then run boat new.
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