boat vs Coasty
Coasty sells a computer-use model and an agent loop that runs on its servers, with machines rented by the hour to run it on. boat sells the machine itself: a full VM with its own kernel, a desktop, and coding agents inside that you drive from outside.
Where boat stands out
A full VM you know the shape of
Every boat sandbox is a VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts, with root, systemd, Docker and /dev/kvm for emulators. Sizes are published, and the CPU was measured at 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Coasty places a machine on a Daytona sandbox, an EC2 VM or an Azure container, and does not publish the default size.
Coding agents inside, driven from outside
Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents come preinstalled, and you prompt, steer and follow them through one API. Real API keys stay outside the sandbox in a credentials proxy, and a credential can switch to another account when it runs out of credits.
State that saves itself
boat saves the disk every minute and when the sandbox stops, a stopped sandbox costs nothing, and you can fork a running sandbox into copies. Coasty snapshots only when you call its API, restores only the latest snapshot on Linux, and has no fork.
The companies and products
boat
boat.dev runs sandboxes for AI agents: each one is a full Linux VM with its own kernel.
You start a machine with one command or one API call, then SSH in, run Docker, open a desktop, or let a built-in agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others) work in it. The disk stays between sessions, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
- Isolation
- Full VM per sandbox, own kernel
- Regions
- EU: Germany, Finland, France
Coasty
Coasty is a computer-use AI company: it builds models, environments, data and evaluations for AI labs, and sells a computer-use API.
Coasty's API turns a screenshot and an instruction into clicks and key presses, and can run a whole task for you on a machine it rents out, with checks, human takeover and webhooks. Those machines are Linux or Windows desktops placed on AWS EC2, Daytona sandboxes or Azure containers, billed per minute from a prepaid wallet. It is built for teams that want an agent to operate apps through the screen, and for labs that train and grade such agents. It is not a general sandbox product, so this page compares the machines and where the two overlap.
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 367” means 2 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 | boat: price rank | Coasty: price rank |
|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software agent needs Docker, systemd and build speed, which boat documents on every machine and Coasty does not publish for its machines. | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month | 34th of 367, with limits $874 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that lives on one machine all month needs saved state and free stops; Coasty bills a stopped machine by the hour and snapshots only on request. | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month | 70th of 366, with limits $1,819 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month | 231st of 345, with limits $161 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month boat gives each user a VM with HTTPS URLs on its ports, while Coasty machines are reached by IP, SSH and VNC. | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month | 218th of 361, with limits $594 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month | 243rd of 360, with limits $2,494 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month | 238th of 364, with limits $244 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month CI jobs need a known machine size and Docker; Coasty publishes neither for its default machine. | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month | 218th of 377, with limits $54 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month | 143rd of 368, with limits $31 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Both fit: Coasty brings its own computer-use model and agent loop, while boat gives your agent a full VM with a 60fps desktop it can drive. | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month | 8th cheapest of 369 $244 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month Both fit; Coasty has browser control and a managed residential proxy, and boat has Chromium with computer use on a VM you can also host from. | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month | 12th cheapest of 367 $244 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month Both fit; Coasty can route a machine through its residential proxy, and boat runs a Chromium fork on a full VM with its own IP. | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month | 21st cheapest of 346 $244 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month | 160th of 338, with limits $4,994 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month Parallel red teaming fits boat's forkable VMs with nested virtualization; on Coasty you boot fresh machines from your latest snapshot. | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month | 51st of 360, with limits $119 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 |
| 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 |
Key features
| Feature | boat | Coasty |
|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | Sandbox VMs for agents, with coding agents built in | Computer-use model API and agent runs, with machines rented to run them |
| Isolation | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts | Daytona sandbox, AWS EC2 VM or Azure container, depending on the task |
| Machine size | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above, sizes published | 1 to 16 cores and 1 to 64 GB, capped by tier; default size not published |
| Operating systems | Ubuntu 24.04 Linux | Linux or Windows; your own macOS machine can be enrolled |
| Desktop and computer use | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream | XFCE desktop over VNC, screenshots, action and browser APIs |
| Agent | Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API | Its own computer-use agent runs on Coasty's servers and drives the machine through the screen |
| Docker, systemd and root | Yes, documented on every machine | SSH and a terminal API as the ubuntu user; Docker and root not documented |
| Nested virtualization | Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs | Not documented |
| Saving state | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing | Snapshot on request for $0.01 each, Linux only; a stopped machine bills $0.01 an hour |
| Fork | Fork a running sandbox with its disk | No fork; a new machine can boot from your latest snapshot |
| Session length | No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live | No cap by default; optional auto-destroy from 5 minutes to 7 days |
| Inbound access | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6 | Public IP with SSH, VNC, WebSocket and browser debug ports; no managed HTTPS URLs |
| Outbound proxy | Open internet from the sandbox's own IP | Optional managed residential proxy, or your own HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy, checked before use |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out | Model keys for its own agent go to Coasty in a header; no proxy for keys used inside the machine |
| Compliance and transparency | SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status and data retention policy. | SOC 2 |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | boat | Coasty |
|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Not published |
| Docker inside | Yes | Not published |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No |
| Root | Yes | Not published |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No |
| Memory fork | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published |
| Public IPv4 | No | Yes |
| Egress allowlist | No | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | No |
| Agent harness API | Yes | No |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| GPU | No | No |
| Windows | No | Yes |
| Arm64 | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Yes |
| Spend limits | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | No | Not published |
| SSO | No | Yes |
| SOC 2 | No | Yes |
| HIPAA | No | Yes |
| EU data residency | Yes | No |
| Zero data retention | Yes | Not published |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement. Coasty does not publish a default machine size or a CPU benchmark, and its machines were not in the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks runs. For reference, boat did 26.69 runs per second on that Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Coasty 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 | boat, a month | Coasty, 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 | $20 · $20/mo | $9 · API pay as you go · with limits |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $26 · $20/mo | $31 · Developer API · with limits |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats | $434 · Developer API · with limits |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats | $244 · Developer API · with limits |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits | $494 · Developer API · with limits |
boat: 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.
Coasty: Coasty bills machines per minute from a prepaid wallet: $0.05 an hour running on Linux, $0.09 on Windows, $0.01 an hour stopped and $0.01 per snapshot, for a size it does not publish. Its agent bills per step on top, $0.05 per managed run step, and the Developer plan is $19 a month with $25 of API credit.
Limits in those scenarios
Coasty does not publish its default machine size, its concurrent-machine cap per plan, or prices for disk and egress, so Coasty's fit cannot be confirmed in any scenario, and its prices here are the runtime rate for a machine of unknown size. Agent steps, if you use Coasty's agent, are billed on top. boat fits four of the five; at 1,000 short jobs at once its $2,000 plan queues starts above 90 a minute and allows 600 starts an hour.
| Scenario | boat | Coasty |
|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite |
|
| One agent that never stops | None that bite |
|
| 50 agents in parallel | None that bite |
|
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
|
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Coasty when
you want a ready computer-use model that operates apps through the screen for you, on Windows or on machines you already own.
- Its own computer-use model and agent loop. For teams that want a ready computer-use agent, with checks, human takeover, workflows and schedules, rather than building their own.
- Windows desktops and your own machines. Useful when an agent must work in Windows apps, or on a Windows or macOS machine you already run.
- Managed residential proxy. Helpful for browser agents on sites that block datacenter IPs: one flag routes the machine through a residential upstream.
Use boat when
your agents need a real machine to work in for hours: Docker, builds, emulators, a desktop and a browser on a full VM, with coding agents and credentials built in.
- A full VM you know the shape of. An agent that installs packages, runs Docker or starts an emulator needs to know what machine it gets. On Coasty the backend can change by task and the default size is not published, so builds may behave differently between runs.
- Coding agents inside, driven from outside. Coasty's agent works through the screen and runs on Coasty's servers. To run a coding agent inside a Coasty machine you install it yourself and put its API key on a machine the agent controls.
- State that saves itself. Agents that run for weeks lose work when a machine fails between manual snapshots. On Coasty you also pay by the hour for each stopped machine you keep.
Questions people ask
Is Coasty a sandbox?
Not mainly. Coasty sells a computer-use model and agent runs, and rents machines for them to run on. boat sells the machine: a full VM for any agent, with coding agents preinstalled.
Is boat cheaper than Coasty?
Coasty's hourly rate is lower on paper, and it comes out lower in the workday and burst scenarios. boat costs less in the always-on, 50-agent and user-sandbox scenarios. Coasty does not publish the size of the machine behind its rate, and its agent steps cost extra, so the numbers are not like for like.
Can I use Coasty's computer-use model with a boat sandbox?
Coasty's docs describe a predict API that takes a screenshot and returns actions for you to run, and a way to enroll a Linux machine you operate. Both paths would work with a desktop you run yourself; we have not tested them on boat.
Does Coasty run Windows?
Yes. Coasty rents Windows machines at a higher hourly rate than Linux, and can drive a Windows or macOS machine you enroll. boat runs Linux only.
Can I run Docker and Android emulators in each?
boat runs Docker on every sandbox and exposes /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs. Coasty gives SSH and a terminal API, but does not document Docker or nested virtualization, and some of its machines are Azure containers.
Is boat SOC 2 compliant?
SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status at status.ascii.dev and our data retention policy at docs.boat.dev/data-retention.
Start a sandbox
Install the CLI, then run boat new.
7-day free trial