boat vs Hyperstack
Hyperstack is a GPU cloud: you rent Nvidia GPU and CPU-only virtual machines by the minute in Norway, Canada and the US. boat is a sandbox for agents, where every machine is a full VM whose disk is saved every minute, costs nothing while stopped, and comes with a desktop and coding agents built in.
Where boat stands out
A disk saved every minute, with fork and free stops
boat snapshots each sandbox's disk every minute and on stop, keeps the whole disk while it is stopped, charges nothing for a stopped sandbox, and can fork a running one. On Hyperstack a stopped VM bills at the full rate; to pause billing you hibernate it, and snapshots are taken by hand with the VM shut off.
Coding agents and a keys proxy built in
boat ships Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and other agents inside each sandbox, and you drive them from outside with a prompt, steer and events API. Its credentials proxy keeps real AI keys out of the sandbox. On Hyperstack you install the agent yourself and pass keys in as files or environment variables.
A desktop, a browser and HTTPS URLs on every machine
Every boat sandbox has a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use, and HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports with token protection. A Hyperstack VM gives you SSH and a public IP; a desktop, a browser and TLS for your apps are yours to set up.
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
Hyperstack
Hyperstack is the GPU cloud of NexGen Cloud, a UK company founded in 2020: you rent GPU and CPU virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters and storage by the minute.
A Hyperstack VM is a full virtual machine with root and SSH, booted from an Ubuntu image (with or without Docker) and sized from a fixed list of flavors, from one RTX A4000 to 8-GPU B300 nodes, plus CPU-only flavors from 4 to 32 vCPUs. It also runs managed Kubernetes, volumes, object storage and an AI Studio inference API. It is built for teams that train, fine-tune and serve models, not as a sandbox API for agents, so this page compares the parts that overlap: VMs as machines for agent work.
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 | Hyperstack: price rank |
|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give a coding agent a real VM with root and Docker, but on Hyperstack a stopped VM keeps billing in full unless you hibernate it, and nothing saves the disk while the agent works. | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month | 343rd of 367, with limits $11,458 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An agent that stays on all month fits both, but Hyperstack's smallest CPU VM has 4 GB of RAM and no desktop or browser for the agent to use. | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month | 337th of 366, with limits $12,775 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 | 172nd of 345, with limits $1,167 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Hyperstack has no sandbox API for your users and does not publish how many VMs can run at once, so 300 sandboxes at once is not confirmed there. | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month | 173rd of 361, with limits $4,207 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 | 173rd of 360, with limits $17,500 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 | 204th of 364, with limits $3,250 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both fit for build and test jobs on full VMs; Hyperstack bills by the minute, while boat sandboxes start from a snapshot and stop for free. | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month | 122nd cheapest of 377 $1,560 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both keep the whole disk; on Hyperstack you hibernate the VM to stop paying for compute, and getting it back needs the same flavor to be in stock. | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month | 115th cheapest of 368 $475 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Hyperstack VMs offer SSH and a text console log but no graphical desktop; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use. | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month | 332nd of 369, with limits $3,250 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month Browser agents on Hyperstack need you to install and run your own headless browser; boat ships Chromium on a desktop in every sandbox. | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month | 335th of 367, with limits $1,750 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month | 327th of 346, with limits $1,750 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 | 310th of 338, with limits $35,000 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month | 309th of 360, with limits $876 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month Only Hyperstack fits: it rents Nvidia GPUs from RTX A4000 to B300 by the minute, and boat has no GPUs. | Can't run it | 2nd cheapest of 98 $625 a month |
| 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 | Hyperstack |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel | Full VMs with root, on flavors mapped 1:1 to physical resources |
| Docker and root | Docker, Docker Compose, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine | Root and SSH; Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 images with or without Docker |
| Stopping a machine | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its whole disk | A SHUTOFF VM bills at the full rate; hibernation bills only disk and a kept IP, and a restore needs the flavor in stock |
| Snapshots | The disk is snapshotted every minute and on stop, while the sandbox keeps running | Snapshots on request only; the VM is shut off while it is taken, one at a time, up to 100 GB |
| Fork | Fork a running sandbox into a new one with the same disk | No clone or fork; you snapshot, make a custom image and deploy a new VM |
| Desktop and computer use | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream | SSH and text console logs; no graphical desktop |
| Reaching the machine | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 | A public IPv4 you can keep static; open ports with firewall rules and run your own TLS |
| Network rules | Open internet out; inbound through HTTPS URLs and TCP ports | Per-VM firewall: inbound closed by default, outbound rules by IP, protocol and port |
| Keeping keys out of the sandbox | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register; switch a credential to another account when credits run out | No credentials proxy; you pass keys in with cloud-init, files or environment variables |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API | A hosted MCP server lets your own agent manage Hyperstack; nothing runs an agent inside a VM for you |
| GPUs | None | Nvidia GPUs from RTX A4000 to H100, H200, B200 and B300, on demand, spot or reserved |
| Largest CPU machine | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB, depending on plan | CPU-only flavors up to 32 vCPU / 64 GB (Canada) |
| Regions | EU only: Germany, Finland, France | Norway, Canada and the US |
| 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 | Hyperstack |
|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | Not published |
| Root | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No |
| Browser | Yes | No |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No |
| 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 | No |
| Public IPv4 | No | Yes |
| Egress allowlist | No | Yes |
| 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 | Yes |
| Windows | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No |
| Open source | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published |
| Spend limits | Yes | Not published |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No |
| Audit logs | No | Not published |
| SSO | No | No |
| SOC 2 | No | Yes |
| HIPAA | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Yes | Not published |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for Hyperstack: it is not in the public sandbox benchmark runs we use. 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 (Zen 5) hosts.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Hyperstack 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 | Hyperstack, 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 | $114 · Prepaid on-demand |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $26 · $20/mo | $475 · Prepaid on-demand |
| 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 | $5,720 · Prepaid on-demand |
| 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 | $1,750 · Prepaid on-demand · 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 | $3,500 · Prepaid on-demand · with limits |
boat: 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 whole disk.
Hyperstack: Hyperstack bills a running VM per minute from a prepaid balance, at a fixed hourly price per flavor, with no charge for bandwidth. CPU-only flavors start at 4 vCPU / 4 GB, so the scenarios use the closest flavor, which is not the same size as boat's; a stopped VM keeps billing in full, so the totals assume you hibernate it between runs.
Limits in those scenarios
Hyperstack does not publish how many VMs can run at once, so 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs at once are not confirmed there; its API allows 500 requests a minute per IP. VMs never stop on their own when idle, and a stopped VM bills until you hibernate or delete it. On boat the limit is a sandbox count (100 to 2,000 by plan) plus starts per minute, so the 1,000-job burst gets queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | boat | Hyperstack |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
|
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
|
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Hyperstack when
the work needs GPUs, regions in Canada or the US, CPU machines larger than 16 vCPU, or managed Kubernetes.
- GPUs, from one card to 8-GPU nodes. Useful if your agents train, fine-tune or serve models: Hyperstack rents Nvidia GPUs by the minute, up to 8-GPU B300 nodes.
- Regions in Canada and the US. Useful if your data or users are in North America: Hyperstack has regions in Quebec and Texas as well as Norway.
- Firewall rules and Kubernetes. Useful if you need to lock outbound traffic to set IPs and ports, or run your own Kubernetes clusters.
Use boat when
your agents write and run code for hours: installs, Docker, builds and tests on a full VM whose disk is saved every minute and costs nothing while stopped, with a desktop, HTTPS URLs and coding agents built in.
- A disk saved every minute, with fork and free stops. Agents break things and sit idle between tasks. On Hyperstack you either pay full price for idle VMs or hibernate them and hope the flavor is in stock to restore, with no recent snapshot to roll back to.
- Coding agents and a keys proxy built in. Code an agent runs can read any key on the machine and send it away. On Hyperstack you also write and maintain the code that starts, prompts and watches each agent.
- A desktop, a browser and HTTPS URLs on every machine. Computer-use and browser agents need a screen to look at, and preview links need HTTPS. On Hyperstack that means installing a desktop stack, a VNC server and certificates on every VM image.
Questions people ask
Is boat cheaper than Hyperstack?
For CPU agent work in our scenarios, yes: one coding agent on workdays comes to $20 a month on boat and $114 on Hyperstack, one agent running all month to $26 versus $475, and 50 agents in parallel to $317 versus $5,720. Hyperstack's closest CPU flavor has 8 vCPU / 8 GB against boat's 4 vCPU / 8 GB, so part of the gap is size.
Do stopped Hyperstack VMs cost money?
Yes. Hyperstack's docs say a SHUTOFF VM is billed at the full rate because its resources stay reserved. A hibernated VM bills only its root disk and any public IP you keep, and restoring it needs the same flavor to be in stock. On boat a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its whole disk.
Does boat have GPUs like Hyperstack?
No. boat runs Linux VMs on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts and has no GPUs. If your agents need to train, fine-tune or serve models, Hyperstack is the right place for that part of the work.
Can I run Docker on Hyperstack?
Yes. Hyperstack VMs are full virtual machines with root, and its Ubuntu images come with or without Docker. boat sandboxes also come with Docker, Docker Compose, systemd and /dev/kvm ready.
Where does my data run?
boat runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France), with EU data residency and a zero data retention option. Hyperstack has regions in Norway, Canada and the US.
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. NexGen Cloud, which runs Hyperstack, says it has achieved SOC 2 Type 2.
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