Daytona vs Instabox
Daytona runs sandboxes as containers by default and adds Linux VM, Windows and GPU classes, with US and EU regions and published per-second rates. Instabox launched on 2026-10-14 as an invite-only beta that gives every agent the same 4 vCPU / 8 GiB Firecracker microVM, free for up to 5 machines while it has no price.
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
Instabox
Instabox, made by InsForge, gives each AI agent its own Linux computer in the cloud. It launched on 2026-10-14 as an invite-only beta.
Each Instabox machine is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, root and Docker, started from one of four templates (agent-browser, universal, herdr or orca) or from your own snapshot. Every machine is 4 vCPU / 8 GiB with 20 GB of storage, and you drive it from a CLI, a TypeScript SDK or an HTTP API, with SSH, mosh, public port URLs and a desktop for computer use. It is aimed at developers who want a cloud box for a coding agent.
- Isolation
- Firecracker microVM per machine
- Machines per account
- 5, in any state: paused and stopped ones count
- Company
- InsForge AI, Inc.
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 | Instabox: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory clones set-up machines often: Daytona's Linux VM class forks with memory kept, Instabox forks only stopped machines, and boat forks a running sandbox. | 15th cheapest of 367 $4,111 a month | No published price | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 24th cheapest of 366 $6,104 a month | No published price | 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: it creates 400 to 600 sandboxes a minute from Tier 2, while Instabox allows 5 machines and 4 exec calls at once. | 25th cheapest of 345 $271 a month | No published price | 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 Instabox allows 5 machines per account, so it cannot give one to each of many users; 300 sandboxes of 2 vCPU also exceed Daytona's 500 vCPU pool, and boat ranks first here. | 154th of 361, with limits $2,000 a month | No published price | 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 | No published price | 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 Instabox's 5-machine cap, with paused and stopped machines counted, limits how many evals run at the same time. | 189th of 364, with limits $2,000 a month | No published price | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month An 8 vCPU CI job needs a raised limit on Daytona and does not fit Instabox, whose only size is 4 vCPU; boat allows 8 vCPU from the $20 plan. | 308th of 377, with limits $805 a month | No published price | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both work as a cloud dev box with SSH; Instabox adds mosh, and Daytona keeps billing the disk while a sandbox is stopped. | 183rd of 368, with limits $245 a month | No published price | 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 All three have a Linux desktop with screenshot and click control; Daytona also has Windows desktops, Instabox can share a view or control link, and boat streams at 60fps. | 26th cheapest of 369 $1,198 a month | No published price | 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 | No published price | 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 | No published price | 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 | No published price | 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 | No published price | 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 Instabox nor boat has GPUs. | 20th cheapest of 98 $1,190 a month | No published price | 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 | No published price | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Daytona | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Container by default; Linux VM and Windows VM classes have their own kernel | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel and root for every machine | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine sizes | You pick vCPU, memory and disk; one sandbox is capped at 4 vCPU / 8 GiB by default, raisable per region | One size for everyone: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB with 20 GB storage; other sizes are refused | Several sizes, up to 8 vCPU / 16 GB on the $20 plan and 16 vCPU / 32 GB on $100 and above |
| How many at once | A shared pool of 10 to 500 vCPU running at once, by tier; custom limits on request | 5 machines per account, paused and stopped ones included | 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan, with limits on starts per minute |
| 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 | 26.69 runs/s |
| Docker | Docker in all classes | Docker and Docker Compose run inside | Docker and Compose, with root and systemd |
| Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm) | Only on the Linux VM class, and KVM must be turned on for your organization | Not documented | /dev/kvm on every machine, for Android emulators and VMs |
| Pause and fork | Linux VM and Windows: pause, resume and fork with memory kept; containers: no pause or fork | Pause keeps memory and running programs; fork copies a stopped machine only | Fork a running sandbox; disk saved every minute and on stop; resume reboots from disk |
| Port URLs | HTTPS preview URLs on any port, token-protected or public; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS on up to 16 ports, open to anyone with the URL; offline while the machine is paused | HTTPS on up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| SSH | SSH access | SSH gateway with short-lived certificates, paste-anywhere SSH tokens and mosh | SSH into every sandbox |
| Desktop and computer use | VNC desktop and a computer-use API on Linux and Windows | Linux desktop with a browser on one template, screenshot and click API, shareable view or control links | 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer use and an embeddable stream |
| Coding agents | Guides install agents and run them through process exec | Templates and saved agent sign-ins in snapshots; you run the agent yourself | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, driven from outside with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Secrets proxy swaps placeholders in HTTPS request headers for allowed hosts | Vault writes your secrets into each machine as environment variables or files | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch to another account when credits run out |
| GPUs and Windows | Nvidia and AMD GPUs by the hour; Windows VM sandboxes | No GPUs; Linux only | No GPUs; no Windows guests, Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | US and EU, plus dedicated regions or your own machines | Not published | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Daytona | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | 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 | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Not published | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Not published | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Not published | No |
| GPU | Yes | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | Not published | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Not published | No |
| BYOC | Yes | Not published | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Not published | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Not published | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | 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. Instabox has no comparable measurement, so this page makes no speed claim for it. Instabox says a new machine's shell is ready in under a second; that has not been measured.
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). Instabox 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 | Instabox, 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) | No published price | $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) | No published price | $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) | No published price | $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 | No published price | $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 | No published price | $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).
Instabox: Instabox is free during the beta, with 5 machines per account, and publishes no price for later. No Instabox bill can be compared yet.
Instabox: 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
Instabox allows 5 machines per account, paused and stopped ones included, all at 4 vCPU / 8 GiB, so the 50-agent, user-sandbox and burst scenarios do not fit it today. Daytona limits total vCPU and memory running at once, up to 500 vCPU on Tier 4, so 300 user sandboxes or 1,000 short jobs need a custom limit, and Tier 1 and 2 reach only an allowlist of registries, git hosts and AI APIs. boat has no session cap on paid plans, but its start limits queue a burst of 1,000 short jobs.
| Scenario | Daytona | Instabox | 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
your agents need GPUs, Windows, memory pause and fork, a US region or more than a handful of sandboxes on published rates.
- GPUs and Windows. Useful if your agents test models or need Windows: Daytona rents Nvidia and AMD GPUs by the hour and runs Windows VM sandboxes.
- Pause and fork with memory. Its Linux VM class can pause and fork a sandbox with memory kept, so a copy picks up exactly where the original was.
- Room to grow, in more places. Daytona publishes its rates and tiers up to 500 vCPU at once, and runs in the US, the EU or on your own machines.
Use Instabox when
you want to try up to five free 4 vCPU / 8 GiB microVMs during its beta, with memory pause and mosh.
- Free during the beta. While the beta lasts, each account can run 5 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GiB at no charge.
- A microVM for every machine. Every Instabox machine is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, so you never have to pick a VM class.
- SSH gateway with mosh. Its SSH gateway relays mosh and gives paste-anywhere SSH tokens, so a terminal session survives sleep and network changes.
Where boat fits
If your agents do long, real work like installs, builds, tests, Docker and emulators, look at boat. Every sandbox is a full VM with /dev/kvm, you can fork it while it runs, and coding agents come built in, on published plans with room for many machines at once.
A full VM with /dev/kvm on every machine
Daytona's default sandbox is a container sharing the host kernel; its VM class needs KVM turned on for your organization. Instabox does not document nested virtualization, so Android emulators and VM builds have no documented path.
Fork running work without stopping it
Instabox forks only stopped machines, and saving a snapshot stops a running one first. Daytona forks only on its VM classes, never containers. boat forks a running sandbox and saves the disk every minute.
Coding agents driven from outside
On Daytona and Instabox you install and run the agent yourself, and Instabox's vault puts real keys inside the machine. boat ships the agents with a prompt, steer and events API, and its proxy keeps keys out.
Use boat when your agents do real work for hours: Docker, emulators and builds on a full, faster VM you can fork while it runs, with coding agents and private port URLs built in. Compare it one to one: boat vs Daytona and boat vs Instabox.
Questions people ask
Is Daytona cheaper than Instabox?
It can't be compared yet. Instabox is free during its beta and publishes no price, so there is no Instabox bill to set against Daytona's. For reference, one coding agent on workdays comes to $56 a month on Daytona and $20 a month on boat.
Which is faster, Daytona or Instabox?
Only Daytona has been measured: its Linux VM class did 21.52 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, and boat did 26.69 in the same run. Instabox says a new machine's shell is ready in under a second, and its docs say a paused machine usually resumes in about a second; neither has been measured here.
Can Daytona and Instabox run Docker?
Yes, both run Docker inside, and Instabox also documents Docker Compose. For nested virtualization, Daytona offers /dev/kvm only on its Linux VM class with KVM turned on for your organization, and Instabox does not document it. boat has Docker and /dev/kvm on every machine.
Are Daytona and Instabox sandboxes containers or VMs?
Daytona's default is a Linux container, with Linux VM and Windows VM classes on request. Every Instabox machine is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel. Every boat sandbox is a full VM.
How many sandboxes can I run at once?
Instabox allows 5 machines per account, counting paused and stopped ones. Daytona limits the vCPU running at once instead, from 10 on Tier 1 to 500 on Tier 4, with custom limits on request. boat allows 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan.
Can I fork a running machine?
On Instabox, no: fork copies a stopped machine. Daytona forks with memory kept on its Linux VM and Windows classes, but not containers. boat forks a running sandbox and keeps the original working.
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