CodeSandbox SDK vs Claude Managed Agents
CodeSandbox SDK rents you Firecracker VMs that hibernate with their memory and wake on the next request, and you bring the agent. Claude Managed Agents is the agent itself: you send Claude a task, and Anthropic's harness runs it in a small container you cannot open from outside.
The companies and products
CodeSandbox SDK
CodeSandbox SDK is an API from CodeSandbox, now a Together AI company, that starts sandboxed development VMs on the same infrastructure as the CodeSandbox editor.
Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM built from a template or any Dockerfile. When it goes idle it hibernates with a memory snapshot, and it resumes or forks from that snapshot in seconds. You drive it from a TypeScript SDK through terminals, commands, files and HTTPS hosts. Together's docs now call it the legacy offering and point new users to its successor, the together-sandbox SDK.
Claude Managed Agents
Claude Managed Agents is Anthropic's ready-made agent harness: Claude runs as an autonomous agent in a cloud sandbox that Anthropic manages, and you talk to it through an events API.
This is an agent platform, not a sandbox you rent. You define an agent (model, prompt, tools, MCP servers, skills) and an environment, then start sessions, send messages as events and stream back what Claude does; the harness handles tool calls, prompt caching and compaction. Each session gets its own Ubuntu container, or runs its tools on a worker you host yourself. It is built for teams that want Claude doing long tasks without building their own agent loop or sandbox.
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. “46th cheapest of 345” means 45 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 | CodeSandbox SDK: price rank | Claude Managed Agents: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month | 178th of 367, with limits $1,939 a month | 106th of 367, with limits $964 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Managed Agents sessions sleep for free between messages, but sandbox state lasts only 30 days; CodeSandbox SDK hibernates too, and a boat disk stays as long as you keep it. | 215th of 366, with limits $2,478 a month | 219th of 366, with limits $2,511 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 CodeSandbox SDK fits short code runs well, with VMs that hibernate between runs; Managed Agents bills runtime only while working, but each run happens inside a Claude session. | 46th cheapest of 345 $642 a month | 163rd of 345, with limits $756 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 CodeSandbox SDK gives each user an HTTPS host that wakes their sandbox, but Scale caps at 250 VMs at once; Managed Agents has no inbound ports, and boat gives HTTPS on 50 ports plus raw TCP. | 140th of 361, with limits $1,707 a month | 231st of 361, with limits $823 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 CodeSandbox SDK's memory forks let many rollouts branch from one running state; Managed Agents cannot fork a session or sandbox. | 348th of 360, with limits $3,861 a month | 252nd of 360, with limits $3,978 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 CodeSandbox SDK fits evals with forks from one warm state; on Managed Agents every eval is a Claude session in a container of unpublished size, and boat forks running sandboxes too. | 64th cheapest of 364 $1,335 a month | 244th of 364, with limits $320 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 CodeSandbox SDK runs Docker from any Dockerfile, Managed Agents lists Docker as limited availability, and only boat exposes /dev/kvm for Android and VM builds. | 92nd cheapest of 377 $860 a month | 227th of 377, with limits $96 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 310th of 368, with limits $240 a month | 224th of 368, with limits $48 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 CodeSandbox SDK nor Managed Agents offers a desktop or computer-use tool; boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps. | 206th of 369, with limits $691 a month | 127th of 369, with limits $288 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 Managed Agents ships headless Chromium with Playwright, CodeSandbox SDK has a headless Chromium template, and boat shows the browser on a live desktop you can watch. | 251st of 367, with limits $443 a month | 126th of 367, with limits $288 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 | 281st of 346, with limits $508 a month | 127th of 346, with limits $390 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 | 193rd of 338, with limits $7,390 a month | 155th of 338, with limits $4,798 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 | 240th of 360, with limits $326 a month | 179th of 360, with limits $160 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 | CodeSandbox SDK | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A sandbox API: Firecracker VMs you drive from a TypeScript SDK; Together now calls it the legacy SDK | A hosted Claude agent: Anthropic's harness runs Claude in a sandbox and you send it events | A sandbox platform: each agent gets its own full Linux VM, with coding agents built in |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel | Isolated Linux container per session | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine size | Up to 16 cores / 32 GB on Scale, 64 cores / 128 GB on Enterprise; 20 GB disk | Up to 8 GB memory and 10 GB disk; vCPU not published; not configurable | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above |
| Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm | Docker and root, built from any Dockerfile; nested virtualization not documented | Docker listed as limited availability; root, systemd and /dev/kvm not documented | Root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Pause and resume | Hibernates with a memory snapshot; resumes with processes still running | Checkpointed with its files and packages when idle; resumes on the next message | Disk saved every minute and on stop; resume boots the machine again |
| How long files last | Hibernated sandboxes are archived after about 7 days and take 20 to 60 seconds to resume | Sandbox state is kept only 30 days after the sandbox is created | The whole disk, for as long as you keep the sandbox |
| Fork | Fork a hibernated sandbox from its snapshot, or a running one sharing its memory | No fork or clone of a session or sandbox | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Wake on demand | An HTTP request to a host wakes a hibernated VM | An idle session wakes on the next message, and idle time is not billed | No; a stopped sandbox is started by API |
| Inbound and shell access | HTTPS host per port, public by default; terminals and commands through the SDK; no SSH or raw TCP | No inbound ports or SSH; reached only through the sessions and events API | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; SSH |
| Browser and desktop | No desktop; a headless Chromium template | Headless Chromium with Playwright; no desktop or computer-use tool | Full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, with Chromium and computer use |
| Agents | Run your own agent through the command API | Anthropic's harness with Claude models, steering, multiagent threads, memory stores and webhooks | Claude Code, Codex and five more preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Secrets passed in as environment variables | Vault secrets live in the sandbox as placeholders and are swapped in at egress, per host | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Network rules and self-hosting | No egress allowlist; no self-hosting | Optional host allowlist; tools can run on workers you host | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist; no self-hosting |
| Where data lives | A country hint steers scheduling, for example to Europe, but placement is not guaranteed | US workspace geo only; not eligible for Zero Data Retention | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with zero data retention |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | CodeSandbox SDK | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | Yes | 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 | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | No | Yes | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | Yes | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | No | No | No |
| EU data residency | No | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | No | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for either CodeSandbox SDK or Claude Managed Agents, and Anthropic does not publish how many vCPUs a Managed Agents sandbox gets. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. On Managed Agents, much of a session's time is often spent waiting on the model rather than the CPU.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. CodeSandbox SDK and Claude Managed Agents 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 | CodeSandbox SDK, a month | Claude Managed Agents, 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 | $193 · Scale | $13 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $341 · Scale | $53 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $2,500 · Scale | $634 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $815 · Scale · with limits | $360 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $1,632 · Scale · with limits | $796 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
CodeSandbox SDK: You buy VM credits and each size burns a fixed number per hour, billed per started minute while the VM runs, including idle time before it hibernates. Scale adds a $170 monthly platform fee that is not usage credit, and a hibernated VM costs nothing.
Claude Managed Agents: Managed Agents bills model tokens at API rates plus a flat session runtime fee, measured to the millisecond only while the session runs, including time waiting on the model. The table shows runtime only; tokens come on top and usually cost more.
Claude Managed Agents: 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
CodeSandbox SDK's Scale plan allows 250 VMs at once, so the 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs do not fit without Enterprise, and its 20 GB disk has no published price for more. A Managed Agents sandbox has up to 8 GB of memory and 10 GB of disk, an unpublished vCPU count and Docker only in limited availability, so no scenario counts as a clean fit; Anthropic publishes no concurrency cap, only 300 creates per minute and usage-tier spend limits. boat fits every scenario except 1,000 jobs at once, where even the $2,000 plan queues starts.
| Scenario | CodeSandbox SDK | Claude Managed Agents | 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 |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use CodeSandbox SDK when
you bring your own agent and want VMs that hibernate with their memory, wake on the next HTTP request and fork from a warm state, and you are fine building on what Together now calls its legacy SDK.
- Memory hibernation and wake on request. Good for previews and code runs that sleep between visits: an HTTP request wakes the VM with its processes still running.
- Forks that share memory. Useful for branching many runs, such as rollouts or test variants, from one warm running state.
- Bigger machines and any agent. Teams that bring their own agent get VMs up to 16 cores on Scale and 64 cores on Enterprise.
Use Claude Managed Agents when
you want Claude itself to do long, mostly text and code tasks with no harness to build, idle time that costs nothing, and the option to run tools on your own workers.
- No agent loop to build. Teams that want Claude doing long tasks get the harness, caching, compaction, memory and webhooks ready to use.
- Idle sessions sleep for free. Agents that wait a long time between messages pay runtime only while working, and resume on the next message.
- Host allowlists and your own workers. Teams with strict network rules can limit sandboxes to listed hosts, or run every tool call on their own infrastructure.
Where boat fits
Look at boat if what you really want is a whole machine for each agent, not a code box you wire up yourself or a container you cannot open. boat gives every agent a full VM with Docker, /dev/kvm, a desktop and open ports, with Claude Code, Codex and other agents already inside and driven from outside.
A whole machine that lasts
Emulator builds and VM-based tests need /dev/kvm, which neither documents. A Managed Agents container stops at 8 GB of memory with Docker in limited availability and loses its state after 30 days; boat keeps the disk until you delete it.
Open and watch what the agent builds
Managed Agents has no inbound ports, so you copy the code elsewhere to try it. CodeSandbox SDK serves HTTPS only, with no desktop. boat gives HTTPS on 50 ports, raw TCP, SSH and a 60fps desktop.
Any agent, keys kept outside
On CodeSandbox SDK you build the agent harness and browser yourself, and keys go in as environment variables. Managed Agents runs only Claude through Anthropic's harness. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex and more, with a credentials proxy for any HTTPS API.
Use boat when your agents need a real machine: Docker, emulators, a desktop and browser, ports you can open, a disk that lasts, and the choice of Claude Code, Codex or other agents. Compare it one to one: boat vs CodeSandbox SDK and boat vs Claude Managed Agents.
Questions people ask
Is CodeSandbox SDK cheaper than Claude Managed Agents?
For sandbox runtime alone, Managed Agents costs less in every scenario on this page, for example $634 against $2,500 a month for 50 agents in parallel. But Managed Agents also bills model tokens on top, and its container is smaller and not a like-for-like sandbox. boat comes to $317 a month for the same 50 agents.
Which is faster, CodeSandbox SDK or Claude Managed Agents?
Neither has a comparable CPU measurement, and Anthropic does not publish the vCPU count of a Managed Agents sandbox. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can CodeSandbox SDK and Claude Managed Agents run Docker?
CodeSandbox SDK runs Docker with root and builds sandboxes from any Dockerfile. Managed Agents lists Docker as limited availability. boat runs Docker and systemd and also exposes /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs.
Can I run Claude Code on either?
Managed Agents runs Anthropic's own harness with Claude models, not Claude Code. On CodeSandbox SDK you install and run your own agent through its command API. On boat, Claude Code, Codex and five other agents come preinstalled.
Can people open an app the agent builds?
On CodeSandbox SDK, yes: each port gets an HTTPS host, public by default, and a request can wake a hibernated VM. A Managed Agents sandbox has no inbound ports. boat gives HTTPS on up to 50 ports, raw TCP and SSH.
Is CodeSandbox SDK still maintained?
CodeSandbox is now part of Together AI. Together's docs call the CodeSandbox-based SDK deprecated and name together-sandbox as its successor, while self-serve sign-up still runs through CodeSandbox.
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