Daytona vs Claude Managed Agents
Daytona is a sandbox you rent and drive from code: a container by default, or a Linux VM, Windows VM or GPU class. Claude Managed Agents is not a sandbox you rent but a hosted Claude agent: you send it events, and it works in a small container that Anthropic runs.
The companies and products
Daytona
Daytona is a cloud for running AI-generated code: you create sandboxes from code through its API and SDKs.
By default a Daytona sandbox is a Linux container with its own namespaces and reserved vCPU, memory and disk. You can also pick a Linux VM class (pause, fork, memory snapshots, /dev/kvm), a Windows VM class, or a GPU class with Nvidia and AMD cards. It is built for teams that run agent code, code interpreters and evals through Python, TypeScript, Ruby, Go or Java SDKs.
- Founded
- 2023
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. “15th cheapest of 367” means 14 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 | Daytona: 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 Daytona fits a coding agent that builds whole apps, with Docker in every class; Managed Agents is a compromise with up to 8 GB of memory and Docker only in limited availability, and boat adds a full VM with /dev/kvm on every machine. | 15th cheapest of 367 $4,111 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 lets idle sessions sleep for free and wake on the next message, but sandbox state is kept only 30 days after creation; Daytona and boat keep a disk as long as you keep the sandbox. | 24th cheapest of 366 $6,104 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 Daytona fits short code runs best of the three: no plan fee and up to 600 sandbox creates a minute on Tier 4, while Managed Agents and boat are compromises here. | 25th cheapest of 345 $271 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 300 sandboxes of 2 vCPU at once need 600 vCPU, more than Daytona's Tier 4 pool of 500, and Managed Agents has no inbound ports for your users to open; boat fits with HTTPS URLs on up to 50 ports. | 154th of 361, with limits $2,000 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 | 130th of 360, with limits $8,261 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 | 189th of 364, with limits $2,000 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 Daytona caps a sandbox at 4 vCPU by default and Managed Agents does not publish its vCPU count, so neither is a clean fit for CI; boat allows 8 vCPU from the $20 plan. | 308th of 377, with limits $805 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 A dev box needs SSH and a disk that lasts: Daytona has SSH but bills the disk while stopped, and Managed Agents has no SSH at all. | 183rd of 368, with limits $245 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 Daytona has a VNC desktop and a computer-use API on Linux and Windows, Managed Agents has only headless Chromium, and boat streams a full desktop at 60fps. | 26th cheapest of 369 $1,198 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 | 93rd of 367, with limits $598 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 | 38th cheapest of 346 $404 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 | 202nd of 338, with limits $8,073 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 | 12th cheapest of 360 $2,000 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 Only Daytona fits: it rents Nvidia and AMD GPUs by the hour, and neither Managed Agents nor boat has GPUs. | 20th cheapest of 98 $1,190 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 | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Daytona | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A sandbox cloud: you create and drive sandboxes through an API and SDKs | 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 | Container by default; Linux VM and Windows VM classes with their own kernel | Isolated Linux container per session | Full VM with its own kernel for every sandbox, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| CPU speed (Node.js build-and-test, 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 21.52 runs/s on the Linux VM class; the default container class reported no result | Not measured; vCPU count not published | 26.69 runs/s |
| Machine size | 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 10 GB disk per sandbox by default, raisable per region | 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 and /dev/kvm | Docker in all classes; /dev/kvm only on Linux VMs, with KVM turned on for your organization | Docker listed as limited availability; root, systemd and /dev/kvm not documented | Root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| Desktop and computer use | VNC desktop and a computer-use API on Linux and Windows | Headless Chromium with Playwright; no desktop or computer-use tool | Linux desktop streamed at 60fps with Chromium, computer use and browser control |
| Pause and fork | Linux VM and Windows: pause, resume and fork with memory kept; containers: no pause or fork | No fork or clone of a session or sandbox | Fork a running sandbox with its disk; resume reboots from disk |
| Files after a stop | The disk is kept and billed while stopped; archived containers are free | Checkpointed when a session goes idle; state kept only 30 days after the sandbox is created | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Wake on next message | No; you start a stopped sandbox yourself | Yes; an idle session resumes on the next message, and idle time is not billed | No; a stopped sandbox is started by API |
| Inbound access | HTTPS preview URLs on any port and SSH; no raw TCP or public IP | No inbound ports or SSH; reached only through the sessions and events API | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, raw TCP, SSH and a dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Outbound internet | Tier 1 and 2 reach only package registries, git hosts and AI APIs; Tier 3 and up get open internet and per-sandbox domain or CIDR allowlists | Unrestricted, or limited to listed hosts plus optional package registries and MCP servers | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| Coding agents | Guides install agents and run them through process exec | Anthropic's harness with Claude models only, with steering, memory stores and webhooks | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| GPUs and Windows | Nvidia and AMD GPUs by the hour; Windows VM sandboxes | No GPUs, Linux only | No GPUs; Linux VMs, with Wine for Windows apps |
| Where it runs | US and EU, plus dedicated regions or your own machines | US workspace geo only; tools can run on workers you host | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Daytona | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | No | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | 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) | No | 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 | No | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | Yes | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | Yes | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | No | Yes |
Performance
In StarSling's public run of 2026-09-29 at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second and Daytona's Linux VM class did 21.52; Daytona's default container class reported no result. Managed Agents was not in that run and Anthropic does not publish its vCPU count, so there is no comparable number for it.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Daytona measured on: Linux VM sandbox (same rates; KVM / nested virt per-org feature). Claude Managed Agents 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 | Daytona, 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 | $56 · Tier 3 ($500 top-up) | $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 | $245 · Tier 3 ($500 top-up) | $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 | $2,682 · Tier 3 ($500 top-up) | $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 | $2,000 · Tier 4 ($2,000 top-up every 30 days) · 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 | $2,000 · Tier 4 ($2,000 top-up every 30 days) · with limits | $796 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Daytona: Daytona bills per second for the vCPU, memory and disk you reserve, from a prepaid wallet with $200 of free compute to start. Open internet needs a $500 top-up (Tier 3), and the biggest pool needs $2,000 every 30 days (Tier 4).
Claude Managed Agents: Managed Agents bills model tokens at API rates plus a flat session runtime fee that accrues only while a session is running. The tables show 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 spent per second while a sandbox runs. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Daytona limits the total vCPU running at once, up to 500 vCPU on Tier 4, so 300 user sandboxes (600 vCPU) and 1,000 short jobs at once (2,000 vCPU) need a custom limit. A Managed Agents sandbox has up to 8 GB of memory and 10 GB of disk with no published vCPU count, and Anthropic publishes no concurrent-session cap, only 300 creates per minute and usage-tier spend limits that pause API use. That is why no scenario counts as a clean fit for Managed Agents.
| Scenario | Daytona | 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 Daytona when
you are building your own agent and want sandboxes you control from code, especially with GPUs, Windows, memory pause or a US region.
- A sandbox you control from code. Teams building their own agent get raw sandboxes with SDKs, Docker, SSH and preview URLs, and run any agent or model inside.
- GPUs, Windows and memory pause. Useful if agents test models or need Windows: Daytona rents GPUs by the hour, and its VM classes pause and fork with memory kept.
- US, EU or your own machines. Daytona runs in the US and the EU, and can manage sandboxes on machines you bring.
Use Claude Managed Agents when
you want Claude itself to do long, mostly text and code tasks with no harness to build and idle time that costs nothing.
- 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.
- No top-up to get started. There is no plan fee or prepaid wallet, and open internet or a host allowlist works from the first session.
Where boat fits
Daytona gives you a sandbox and leaves the agent to you; Managed Agents gives you an agent in a small container you can't open. If your agents do hours of real work, with installs, builds, Docker, emulators and apps people need to click on, boat gives each one a full, faster VM with coding agents you drive from outside.
A full VM by default
On Daytona the default is a container sharing the host kernel, and /dev/kvm needs the VM class plus KVM turned on for your organization. Managed Agents has Docker only in limited availability and documents no /dev/kvm.
A disk that lasts and stops for free
Daytona keeps billing the disk of a stopped sandbox unless you archive a container. Managed Agents keeps sandbox state only 30 days after creation, so a returning agent redoes its setup. boat saves the disk every minute.
Any agent, driven from outside
On Daytona you install the agent and write the code that starts and watches it. Managed Agents runs only Anthropic's harness. boat ships Claude Code, Codex and more with one prompt, steer and events API.
Use boat when your agents need a real machine: Docker, emulators, a desktop, ports you can open, a disk that lasts, and Claude Code, Codex or other agents driven from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Daytona and boat vs Claude Managed Agents.
Questions people ask
Is Daytona cheaper than Claude Managed Agents?
For runtime alone, Managed Agents costs less in every scenario we priced, for example $53 against $245 for one agent running all month. But that leaves out model tokens, which usually cost more than the runtime, and its small container is not a clean fit for any scenario. On boat the same agent comes to $26 a month.
Which is faster, Daytona or Claude Managed Agents?
Only Daytona has a measured CPU score: 21.52 runs per second on its Linux VM class, against 26.69 for boat. Managed Agents was not benchmarked and Anthropic does not publish how many vCPUs a sandbox gets.
Can Daytona and Claude Managed Agents run Docker?
Daytona runs Docker in all its classes, and /dev/kvm on its Linux VM class once KVM is turned on for your organization. Managed Agents lists Docker as limited availability. boat has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine.
Can I run Claude Code on Daytona or Claude Managed Agents?
On Daytona, yes: its guides install Claude Code and run it as a process in the sandbox. Managed Agents runs Anthropic's own harness with Claude models, not Claude Code. On boat, Claude Code, Codex and other agents come preinstalled and you drive them from outside.
Can I open an app my agent built?
On Daytona, yes, through HTTPS preview URLs on any port. Managed Agents has no inbound ports or SSH, so you see the work only through the events API. boat gives each sandbox HTTPS URLs on up to 50 ports, raw TCP and SSH.
Where do Daytona and Claude Managed Agents run?
Daytona offers US and EU regions, plus dedicated regions and your own machines. Managed Agents stores data and runs code in the US workspace geo only, or runs tools on workers you host. boat runs only in the EU, with EU data residency.
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