boat vs netcup
netcup is a German hosting company: you rent a KVM server for a fixed term and set it up yourself. boat starts sandbox VMs from an API, with Docker and /dev/kvm ready, saves them every minute, and ships coding agents you drive from outside.
Where boat stands out
Nested virtualization and Docker ready
Every boat sandbox has root, systemd, Docker and /dev/kvm ready, so agents can run Android emulators, Firecracker or their own VMs. netcup's FAQ says the SVM flag is disabled on its systems and cannot be turned on, on VPS and root servers alike.
State saved every minute, and forks
boat snapshots a running sandbox every minute and again when it stops, so a bad agent step loses at most a minute. You can fork a running sandbox into copies, or save it as a named template others start from. On netcup you take snapshots by hand, online snapshots only restore in place, and a new server comes from an exported offline snapshot.
Coding agents you drive from outside
boat ships Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and other agents in every sandbox, and one API prompts them, steers them mid-task and streams their events. Its credentials proxy keeps real AI keys out of the sandbox, and each sandbox can show a 60fps desktop for computer use. On netcup you install the agents, write the glue to run them over SSH, and store keys on the server.
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
netcup
netcup is a German hosting company that rents VPS, dedicated-core root servers, ARM64 servers, web hosting and domains.
A netcup VPS is a KVM virtual machine with shared vCPU cores, fixed RAM and SSD, root access and a public IP, which you order in a web shop for a 1, 12 or 24 month term and then manage yourself. It is a VPS host, not a sandbox product: there is no per-second billing, no agent tooling and no managed HTTPS in front of the server. It fits people who want a cheap server that runs all month in Europe, the US or Singapore.
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 | netcup: price rank |
|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory starts and stops many machines a day; boat does that by API and bills per second, while each netcup server is rented for a whole term. | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month | 95th of 367, with limits $851 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Both can keep an assistant running for months; boat adds saved state every minute and a built-in agent API, while on netcup you install and watch everything yourself. | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month | 91st of 366, with limits $251 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month Neither suits many one-minute code runs well: netcup bills by the month, and boat's start limits make big bursts a compromise. | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month | 135th of 345, with limits $296 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Handing a fresh sandbox to each of your users needs fast starts and stops; netcup servers are ordered in a web shop and rented by the month. | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month | 132nd of 361, with limits $1,509 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 | 87th of 360, with limits $5,029 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 | 193rd of 364, with limits $2,128 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both run CI jobs on real VMs, but netcup turns off nested virtualization, so Android emulators and Firecracker tests need /dev/kvm elsewhere. | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month | 166th of 377, with limits $614 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB netcup fits one server that runs all month very well: a 4 vCPU / 8 GB VPS with root and a public IP for a low flat fee. | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month | 4th cheapest of 368 $15 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium for computer use; a netcup VPS is headless until you install and stream a desktop yourself. | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month | 162nd of 369, with limits $426 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month | 216th of 367, with limits $251 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 | 205th of 346, with limits $148 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 | 107th of 338, with limits $2,958 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 | 315th of 360, with limits $1,006 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 | netcup |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Sandbox VMs for agents, started and stopped from an API | KVM servers rented on 1 to 24 month terms that you set up yourself |
| Isolation | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts | KVM VM; VPS shares vCPU cores, Root Server has dedicated EPYC cores |
| Starting a machine | A new sandbox from the API in seconds, billed per second | Ordered in the web shop on a minimum term; the fee is paid for the whole term |
| Nested virtualization | /dev/kvm on every machine | Disabled on all systems; the SVM flag cannot be turned on |
| Docker, root and systemd | Ready on every machine | Full root on the VM; you install Docker yourself |
| Saved state | Snapshots every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing | Manual snapshots: offline (disk) or online (with running state, restore in place only) |
| Fork and templates | Fork a running sandbox; named snapshots as templates, shareable by code | No fork; an offline snapshot can be exported once for free and imported into another server |
| Desktop and computer use | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream | Headless server with a remote console for setup and rescue |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API | None built in; you install agents and run them over SSH |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register | None; secrets live inside the server |
| Reaching the machine | HTTPS URLs with TLS for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 | Public IPv4 and IPv6, all ports; domains and TLS are yours to set up |
| Outbound traffic rules | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist | Free network firewall with outgoing rules by IP, port and protocol |
| CPU types | x86 only (AMD Zen 5) | x86 VPS and root servers, plus separate ARM64 VPS plans |
| Regions | EU only: Germany, Finland, France | Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the US (Manassas) and Singapore |
| Compliance and transparency | SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status and data retention policy. | No SOC 2 report published |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | boat | netcup |
|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No |
| Root | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No |
| Browser | Yes | No |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No |
| SSH | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No |
| 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 | Yes |
| 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 | No |
| GPU | No | No |
| Windows | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | Yes |
| 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 | No |
| HIPAA | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Yes | Not published |
Performance
netcup is not in the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks run, so there is no comparable CPU measurement for it. boat was measured on that Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, and the table shows its score. netcup's VPS uses shared vCPU cores and its Root Server dedicated cores; we don't guess how either would score.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. netcup 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 | netcup, 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 · Usage account · with limits |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $26 · $20/mo | $9 · Usage account · 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 | $426 · Usage account · 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 | $1,509 · Usage account · 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 | $5,029 · Usage account · 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 disk.
netcup: netcup charges a fixed monthly fee per server on a minimum term, and bills it in advance for the whole term, whether the server is busy, idle or off. Longer terms are cheaper per month, and the Lite plans need 2 to 12 months up front depending on the size.
Limits in those scenarios
On netcup the limit that bites is the term: the cheapest 4 vCPU plan needs 3 months up front, so even a workday agent pays for whole months. netcup publishes no limit on how many servers one account can run, so 300 user sandboxes or 1,000 short jobs at once mean renting and checking that many servers for full terms. VPS cores are shared, so heavy, sustained CPU use can slow down. On boat, concurrency goes from 100 to 2,000 by plan, but start-rate limits mean even the top plan can't launch 1,000 short jobs at once without queueing.
| Scenario | boat | netcup |
|---|---|---|
| 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 netcup when
you want one cheap server that runs all month, ARM64 machines, or a server in the US or Singapore.
- One server that runs all month. Useful for one always-on server: a low flat fee buys a 4 vCPU / 8 GB VPS with traffic included.
- US and Singapore locations. Useful if your users are in America or Asia: netcup has servers in Manassas and Singapore.
- ARM64 servers and network firewall rules. Useful if you build for ARM or want outbound rules outside the machine: netcup sells ARM64 VPS plans and a network firewall.
Use boat when
agents start, stop and fork machines all day: each sandbox is a full VM from an API with /dev/kvm, saved every minute, with a desktop and coding agents you drive from outside.
- Nested virtualization and Docker ready. Agents that test mobile apps or build microVMs need /dev/kvm. On netcup there is no plan that turns it on, so that work must move to another host.
- State saved every minute, and forks. Agents sometimes wreck an install or delete files. With manual snapshots you must remember to take one first, and splitting one good machine into ten parallel attempts means stopping it, exporting and renting ten servers.
- Coding agents you drive from outside. On a plain VPS the agent's API keys sit on a disk the agent can read and leak. You also build and maintain the code that starts, prompts and watches each agent yourself.
Questions people ask
Is boat cheaper than netcup?
For one machine that runs all month, netcup is cheaper: $9 against $26 a month on boat, though the cheapest plan needs a 3 month term. For 50 agents in parallel it is $317 on boat against $426, and 300 sandboxes for your users come to $200 on boat against $1,509. For 1,000 short jobs at once, neither fits.
Does netcup support nested virtualization?
No. netcup's FAQ says the SVM flag is disabled on its systems for security and stability and cannot be activated, and suggests containers instead. Every boat sandbox has /dev/kvm.
Does netcup have hourly billing?
Its VPS and root servers are rented on minimum terms of 1, 12 or 24 months, with the fee billed in advance for the term. boat bills per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped one costs nothing.
Can I run Claude Code on a netcup VPS?
Yes, you get root and can install it yourself, then run it over SSH with your API key on the server. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others, drives them through an API, and keeps real keys out of the sandbox with its credentials proxy.
Where do boat and netcup run?
boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France, with EU data residency. netcup has servers in Vienna, Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Manassas in the US and Singapore.
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.
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