Cloudflare Sandbox vs Ona
Cloudflare Sandbox is a self-serve API: your Worker starts a container that sleeps when idle and comes back with a fresh disk. Ona, formerly Gitpod and now part of OpenAI, gives engineers and its Codex agent full dev environments that keep their disk, sold through sales.
The companies and products
Cloudflare Sandbox
Cloudflare Sandbox SDK runs untrusted or AI-generated code in Linux containers on Cloudflare's network, driven from a Cloudflare Worker.
Each sandbox is a Cloudflare Container backed by a Durable Object, and each container runs in its own Firecracker microVM with its own kernel and network. You build a linux/amd64 image, pick an instance type of up to 4 vCPU and 12 GiB, and reach the sandbox through your own Worker. It suits teams already on Workers who want short-lived sandboxes that sleep when idle; for code that only calls known methods, Cloudflare also offers Dynamic Workers, which run JavaScript in V8 isolates.
- Largest instance
- 4 vCPU, 12 GiB memory, 20 GB disk (defaults, can be raised)
- Account limits
- 1,500 vCPU, 6 TiB memory and 30 TB disk running at once
- Compliance
- Cloudflare holds a SOC 2 Type II report
Ona
Ona, formerly Gitpod, is a platform for cloud dev environments and background coding agents, and is now part of OpenAI.
Ona is a different kind of product from boat: a dev-environment platform, not a sandbox API. Each task or developer gets an isolated VM built from a Dev Container config, which people open in a browser IDE, VS Code or JetBrains, and where Ona's Codex Agent can plan, code, test and open pull requests. It is built for engineering teams who want the same governed environment for every developer and agent; new customers run it in their own AWS or GCP account on an Enterprise contract.
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. “13th cheapest of 345” means 12 of the other 344 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 | Cloudflare Sandbox: price rank | Ona: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Neither fits fully: Cloudflare wipes the disk on sleep and caps it at 20 GB by default, and Ona needs an Enterprise contract to start environments from code; boat keeps the disk and has Docker, /dev/kvm and a desktop. | 162nd of 367, with limits $1,543 a month | 324th of 367, with limits $7,315 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Ona keeps an assistant's files across stops but stops it after 30 idle minutes unless auto-stop is set to Never; Cloudflare keeps nothing after sleep; boat keeps the disk and runs until you stop it. | 207th of 366, with limits $2,188 a month | 83rd of 366, with limits $8,504 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 Cloudflare fits short code-interpreter calls well, since CPU is billed only while busy and a container wakes on the next request; Ona is not built for this. | 13th cheapest of 345 $144 a month | 335th of 345, with limits $5,320 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 Cloudflare and boat both fit sandboxes for your users; Ona is built for your own engineers, and its per-user policy defaults to 10 running environments. | 9th cheapest of 361 $731 a month | 330th of 361, with limits $5,988 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 | 144th of 360, with limits $9,428 a month | 283rd of 360, with limits $9,773 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 | 45th cheapest of 364 $818 a month | 334th of 364, with limits $5,768 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 Cloudflare caps disk at 20 GB by default and runs Docker with iptables turned off, and Ona starts each run from a prebuild with no fork; boat has full Docker and can fork a warm machine. | 301st of 377, with limits $704 a month | 365th of 377, with limits $5,461 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Ona is a full cloud IDE with Dev Containers and prebuilds, while Cloudflare starts from a fresh disk after sleep; boat is a full VM that keeps its files and costs nothing while stopped. | 70th cheapest of 368 $93 a month | 368th of 368, with limits $5,140 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 Neither ships a desktop: Cloudflare removed its built-in one and Ona has none inside the environment; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and a computer-use API. | 166th of 369, with limits $460 a month | 353rd of 369, with limits $5,691 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 | 210th of 367, with limits $233 a month | 150th of 367, with limits $5,346 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 | 250th of 346, with limits $286 a month | 146th of 346, with limits $5,468 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 | 169th of 338, with limits $5,741 a month | 261st of 338, with limits $14,360 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 Cloudflare takes no raw TCP from outside and cannot change iptables, and Ona documents no raw TCP or /dev/kvm; boat has root networking, raw TCP, nested VMs and fork. | 239th of 360, with limits $325 a month | 93rd of 360, with limits $5,228 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 | Cloudflare Sandbox | Ona | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | Sandbox SDK: containers you start and drive from a Cloudflare Worker | Dev-environment platform for engineers and the Codex agent | Sandbox API: full VMs you start and drive from code |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM per container, own kernel and network | Isolated VM per environment, built from a Dev Container config | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| How you buy it | Self-serve on Workers Paid ($5 a month minimum) | New Core subscriptions closed; Enterprise through sales | Self-serve plans from $20 a month, with a free trial |
| Driving it from code | Sandbox SDK from your Worker | Python, TypeScript and Go SDK on the Enterprise plan only | API and SDK on every plan, including the trial |
| Files after a stop | Fresh disk after sleep; snapshots (public beta, 30 days) or R2 backups when your code saves them | Disk kept across stops; on your own cloud its storage is billed while stopped; Core archives after 3 days | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox keeps it and costs nothing |
| Fork | No fork; restore a saved snapshot into a new sandbox | No environment copy; start again from a config or prebuild | Fork a running sandbox without stopping it |
| Docker and nested virtualization | docker:dind with iptables and IP forwarding off; nested virtualization not documented | Docker and root in the Dev Container; nested virtualization not documented | Full Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm |
| Desktop and computer use | Built-in desktop removed in SDK 0.10.2; bring your own | Browser IDE, VS Code and JetBrains; no graphical desktop | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer-use API, embeddable stream |
| Coding agents | Run Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or Pi in your own image | Codex Agent from chat, a Linear issue or an automation; Claude Code you run yourself | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping keys out of the sandbox | Outbound handler you write adds tokens for any HTTP or HTTPS host | Secrets injected as environment variables or files | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account |
| Egress control | allowedHosts deny-by-default list plus outbound handlers in Worker code | No egress allowlist documented | No provider-side allowlist |
| Reaching the sandbox | HTTP and WebSocket previews through your Worker; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS URL per port and SSH; no raw TCP or public IP documented | HTTPS on up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Largest machine and GPUs | 4 vCPU / 12 GiB / 20 GB disk by default; no GPU | Up to 32 vCPU / 128 GB on Core; GPU types such as an A10G on Enterprise runners | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB, depending on plan; no GPU |
| Where it runs | Several regions across Cloudflare's network | Your own AWS or GCP account; Ona Cloud in Frankfurt and North Virginia for Core | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Cloudflare Sandbox | Ona | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | No | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | No | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | 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 | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | No | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | Yes | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Not published | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | No | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
Neither Cloudflare Sandbox nor Ona has a result on the public benchmark we use, so there is no comparable CPU number for either of them. 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 hosts.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Cloudflare Sandbox and Ona have 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 | Cloudflare Sandbox, a month | Ona, 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 | $39 · Workers Paid · with limits | $5,030 · Enterprise (AWS Marketplace 12-month contract) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $148 · Workers Paid · with limits | $5,140 · Enterprise (AWS Marketplace 12-month contract) · 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 | $1,660 · Workers Paid · with limits | $6,521 · Enterprise (AWS Marketplace 12-month contract) · 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 | $476 · Workers Paid | $5,432 · Enterprise (AWS Marketplace 12-month contract) · 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 | $1,889 · Workers Paid · with limits | $5,955 · Enterprise (AWS Marketplace 12-month contract) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Cloudflare Sandbox: You need Workers Paid ($5 a month minimum). CPU is billed only while busy; memory and disk are billed on the instance size until the container sleeps, and 4 vCPU always comes with 12 GiB.
Ona: New Core subscriptions are closed, so Ona's prices here use its Enterprise listing on AWS Marketplace: a 12-month, $60,000 contract, plus compute on your own AWS bill. Real prices are negotiated with sales.
Ona: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it is usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Cloudflare's disk resets after sleep, so the scenarios that keep 50 GB of files between days do not fit without your own snapshot code, and its default 1,500 vCPU account limit is short of the 2,000 the 1,000-job burst needs. No Ona scenario fits as published, because new customers can only buy Enterprise through sales, and the table assumes 3 environments at once since Ona publishes no Enterprise limit. On boat, the 1,000-job burst runs into start limits: the $2,000 plan allows 600 starts an hour, and bursts above 90 starts a minute wait in a queue.
| Scenario | Cloudflare Sandbox | Ona | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Cloudflare Sandbox when
your app already runs on Workers and you want short, self-serve sandboxes that sleep when idle and wake on the next request.
- Self-serve and pay as you go. Anyone on Workers Paid can start sandboxes today, and CPU is billed only while it is busy.
- Sleeps when idle, wakes on request. Useful for many short, spiky sessions: a sandbox sleeps when idle and starts again on the next request.
- Egress rules you can program. Cloudflare can block every host except the ones you list, and run your own code on each outbound request.
Use Ona when
your engineers want a governed cloud IDE shared with a Codex agent, inside your own AWS or GCP account or with a GPU.
- A full cloud IDE for your team. Useful if your engineers work in the same environments as their agents, with browser, VS Code and JetBrains IDEs.
- Runs in your own cloud. Useful if environments must run inside your own AWS or GCP account: Ona's Enterprise runners do that.
- GPU environments. Useful if your agents need a GPU: Enterprise runners can use GPU types, such as an A10G VM with 16 vCPU and 64 GB.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is coding agents that work for hours, Cloudflare gives you a small box that forgets its files, and Ona gives you a dev environment you can only drive from code on an Enterprise contract. boat is a self-serve sandbox API with full VMs that keep their disk, fork while running, and come with agents, a desktop and open ports.
A machine that keeps its work
On Cloudflare a sleeping sandbox comes back with an empty disk unless your code saves a snapshot. On Ona the disk stays but bills on your cloud while stopped, and neither can fork a running machine.
A whole VM, not a cut-down box
Cloudflare runs Docker with iptables off, has 20 GB of disk by default and no desktop. Ona documents no /dev/kvm, desktop or raw TCP. boat has full Docker, /dev/kvm, a 60fps desktop and raw TCP.
Agents driven from outside, keys kept out
On Cloudflare you bake each agent into your image and write the handler that adds every token. On Ona the managed agent is Codex and secrets land inside the environment. boat preinstalls agents and proxies credentials.
Use boat when your code starts and drives agents that work for hours: full VMs with Docker, /dev/kvm and a desktop, that keep their files and fork while running. Compare it one to one: boat vs Cloudflare Sandbox and boat vs Ona.
Questions people ask
Is Cloudflare Sandbox cheaper than Ona?
In every scenario we priced, yes: one agent running all month is $148 on Cloudflare against $5,140 on Ona, and 300 user sandboxes are $476 against $5,432. Ona's figures use its Enterprise listing, so a real sales quote may differ. boat comes to $26 and $200 for the same two.
Which is faster?
We cannot say. Neither Cloudflare Sandbox nor Ona has a result on the public benchmark we use. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can I run Docker inside either one?
Yes, with limits. Cloudflare supports docker:dind with iptables and IP forwarding turned off, and Ona runs Docker inside the Dev Container. boat runs full Docker with root, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Which one keeps my files?
Ona keeps the disk across stops, though Core archives a stopped environment after 3 days. Cloudflare starts from a fresh disk after sleep unless your code saved a snapshot or an R2 backup. boat saves the disk every minute and on stop.
Can I sign up for either one today?
Cloudflare Sandbox is self-serve on Workers Paid. Ona's new Core subscriptions are closed, so new customers go through sales for Enterprise. boat's plans are self-serve, from a free trial up.
Can I run Claude Code on them?
On both, you install and run it yourself: in your image on Cloudflare, inside the environment on Ona, where the managed agent is Codex. boat ships Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others preinstalled, with one API to prompt, steer and watch them.
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