Daytona vs Vercel Sandbox
Daytona starts each sandbox as a container and sells Linux VM, Windows and GPU classes that can run as long as you like. Vercel Sandbox puts every sandbox in a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, built for short runs in 19 regions, with each session capped at 24 hours.
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
Vercel Sandbox
Vercel is a cloud platform for web apps and agents, and Vercel Sandbox is its product for running untrusted or agent-written code in isolated Linux microVMs.
Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, started from a Vercel image, your own OCI image, or a saved snapshot. You drive it with the JavaScript or Python SDK or the sandbox CLI: run commands, move files, open ports, and set network rules. It is aimed at code interpreters, app builders, test runs and agent tools, and Vercel's docs say it is not meant to run nonstop.
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 | Vercel Sandbox: 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 software factory with its Linux VM class and desktop, while Vercel Sandbox is a compromise: no desktop, no nested virtualization and a 24-hour session cap; boat fits with all of these on every machine. | 15th cheapest of 367 $4,111 a month | 244th of 367, with limits $3,351 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Daytona sandboxes can run with no time limit, while Vercel's docs say its sandboxes are not designed to run continuously. | 24th cheapest of 366 $6,104 a month | 257th of 366, with limits $3,657 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 Both fit short code bursts: Vercel bills CPU only while code uses it, and Daytona creates hundreds of sandboxes a minute with no plan fee. | 25th cheapest of 345 $271 a month | 22nd cheapest of 345 $216 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 15th and fits 300 user sandboxes at once, while Daytona's Tier 4 pool of 500 vCPU is too small for the 600 vCPU this needs. | 154th of 361, with limits $2,000 a month | 15th cheapest of 361 $1,267 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 3rd for many short parallel rollouts, thanks to high concurrency and fast starts, while Daytona ranks 130th. | 130th of 360, with limits $8,261 a month | 3rd cheapest of 360 $15,761 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 | 69th cheapest of 364 $1,508 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 | 308th of 377, with limits $805 a month | 107th cheapest of 377 $1,144 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Neither fits a box that stays up all day cleanly: Vercel Sandbox restarts it every 24 hours and Daytona ranks 183rd, while boat ranks 18th with no session cap on paid plans. | 183rd of 368, with limits $245 a month | 276th of 368, with limits $145 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; Vercel Sandbox is headless, and boat streams a 60fps desktop you can embed. | 26th cheapest of 369 $1,198 a month | 235th of 369, with limits $952 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 | 259th of 367, with limits $486 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 | 277th of 346, with limits $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 | 202nd of 338, with limits $8,073 a month | 234th of 338, with limits $9,960 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 | 283rd of 360, with limits $554 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 GPU eval jobs: it rents Nvidia and AMD GPUs by the hour, and neither Vercel Sandbox 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 | Vercel Sandbox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Container by default; Linux VM and Windows VM classes with their own kernel on request | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel for every sandbox | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel, 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 | 12.96 runs/s | 26.69 runs/s |
| Longest session | No cap by default; the wall-clock TTL is off unless you set it | 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise, 45 minutes on Hobby; resume starts a new session | No cap on paid plans (--no-auto-stop); default TTL 1 hour, changeable |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Docker in all classes; /dev/kvm only on Linux VMs, with KVM turned on for your organization | Docker with sudo; no nested virtualization | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| Desktop and computer use | VNC desktop (xfce4) and a computer-use API on Linux and Windows | None; headless Linux only | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer-use and browser-control APIs, embeddable stream |
| Pause and memory | Linux VM and Windows: pause, resume and fork with memory kept; containers: no pause or fork | Memory not kept; a new session boots from the filesystem snapshot | Fork a running sandbox; resume reboots from disk (no memory snapshots) |
| Files after a stop | The disk is kept and billed while stopped; archived containers are free | Filesystem snapshot on stop, billed per GB a month and kept 30 days after last use by default | Snapshots every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Custom images | Docker images and declarative builds for containers; VM snapshots from an image | Your own OCI images from a Dockerfile, via Vercel Container Registry | Named snapshots (templates), shareable by code; no Dockerfile builds |
| Coding agents | Guides to install agents and run them through process exec | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and pi preinstalled; you start them as commands | Claude Code, Codex, pi, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with an API to prompt, steer and stream events |
| Reaching the sandbox | HTTPS preview URLs on any port, token-protected or public; SSH; no raw TCP or public IP | Public URLs for up to 15 ports, no built-in auth; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Outbound internet | Tier 1 and 2 reach only package registries, git hosts and AI APIs; open internet and per-sandbox allowlists from Tier 3 | Allow-all, deny-all or a domain and CIDR allowlist, changeable while running; static IPs on Enterprise | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist, firewall inside the VM |
| Keeping keys out of the sandbox | Secrets proxy swaps placeholders in HTTPS request headers for allowed hosts | Credentials brokering injects headers for any HTTPS domain you allow | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| GPUs and Windows | Nvidia and AMD GPUs, on-demand or preemptible; Windows VM sandboxes | No GPUs, no Windows | No GPUs; no Windows guests, Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | US and EU, plus dedicated regions or your own machines (BYOC) | 19 regions across the US, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Daytona | Vercel Sandbox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | No | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | Yes | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | 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 | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | Yes | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | Yes | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | 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, Daytona's Linux VM class did 21.52 and Vercel Sandbox did 12.96. That makes Daytona's VM class about 1.7 times as fast as Vercel Sandbox, and boat about twice as fast. Daytona's default container class reported no result, so there is no CPU number for the class most Daytona sandboxes use.
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).
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 | Vercel Sandbox, 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) | $57 · Pro | $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) | $236 · Pro · 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) | $2,884 · Pro | $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 | $828 · Pro | $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 | $3,152 · Pro | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Daytona: Daytona bills per second for the vCPU, memory and disk you reserve, including while a sandbox starts or stops, and keeps billing the disk while it is stopped. You pay from a prepaid wallet: open internet needs a $500 top-up (Tier 3), and the biggest pool needs $2,000 every 30 days (Tier 4).
Vercel Sandbox: Vercel charges for CPU only while your code uses it, but for memory the whole time a sandbox runs, plus a small fee per sandbox created and a monthly fee per GB of snapshots. The $20 Pro credit is shared with your other Vercel usage.
Vercel Sandbox: boat charges a flat price per size, per second, only while the machine runs; a stopped sandbox costs nothing. Plans start at $20 a month, and all of the fee is usage credit.
Limits in those scenarios
Daytona limits the total vCPU running at once, up to 500 vCPU on Tier 4, so 300 sandboxes for your users (600 vCPU) and 1,000 short jobs at once (2,000 vCPU) need a custom limit there; Vercel fits both. Vercel ends each session at 24 hours, so one agent that never stops restarts its processes every day, while Daytona runs it all month. Daytona also caps one sandbox at 4 vCPU / 8 GB by default and only opens the internet from Tier 3, while one Vercel Pro sandbox can reach 8 vCPU / 16 GB.
| Scenario | Daytona | Vercel Sandbox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
|
| None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
| None that bite |
|
Which one should you use?
Use Daytona when
your agents need GPUs, Windows, memory pause, or runs longer than 24 hours, or must run on your own machines.
- Runs as long as you need. Useful for agents that never stop: a Daytona sandbox has no session cap by default, while Vercel ends each session at 24 hours.
- GPUs and Windows. Useful if your agents test models or need Windows: Daytona rents Nvidia and AMD GPUs and runs Windows VM sandboxes.
- Pause with memory kept. Useful for long tasks you want to freeze: Daytona's VM classes pause and fork with memory, so work resumes where it stopped.
Use Vercel Sandbox when
you run many short bursts of untrusted code, each in its own microVM, or need regions outside the US and Europe.
- A microVM for every sandbox. Every Vercel sandbox gets its own kernel by default, while Daytona's default class is a container sharing the host kernel.
- Big bursts fit. Useful for hundreds of short jobs at once: Vercel fits 1,000 parallel jobs where Daytona's 500 vCPU pool needs a custom limit.
- Regions and network rules. Useful for users far from Europe and the US: 19 regions, with egress rules you can change on a running sandbox.
Where boat fits
If your agents work for hours on one machine, building, testing and checking what they made, look at boat. Every boat sandbox is a full, faster VM with Docker, /dev/kvm, a desktop and coding agents you drive from outside, with no session cap on paid plans.
A full VM with /dev/kvm on every machine
Daytona's default is a container sharing the host kernel, and its VM class needs KVM turned on for your organization. Vercel's microVMs have no nested virtualization, so Android emulators and VMs cannot run inside.
Faster CPU in the same test
At 4 vCPU / 8 GB boat did 26.69 runs per second, Daytona's VM class 21.52 and Vercel Sandbox 12.96. Every install, build and test takes longer on both, and you pay for the waiting.
Coding agents you drive from outside
On Daytona you install each agent and run it as a process; on Vercel the agents are there but start as plain commands. On both you write and maintain the code that prompts, steers and watches them.
Use boat when your agents work for hours on one machine: installs, builds, tests, Docker and emulators on a full, faster VM with a desktop, and an API to drive the agents inside from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Daytona and boat vs Vercel Sandbox.
Questions people ask
Is Daytona cheaper than Vercel Sandbox?
They are close for agents: one workday coding agent costs $56 a month on Daytona and $57 on Vercel, and 50 parallel agents cost $2,682 versus $2,884. Vercel is cheaper for 300 user sandboxes at $828, which Daytona cannot fit even on Tier 4. boat comes to $20 and $317 for the first two.
Which is faster, Daytona or Vercel Sandbox?
In the same public benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, Daytona's Linux VM class did 21.52 runs per second and Vercel Sandbox did 12.96. Daytona's default container class reported no result. boat did 26.69 in the same run.
Are they containers or virtual machines?
Vercel Sandbox runs every sandbox in a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel. Daytona's default is a Linux container, with Linux VM and Windows VM classes you can choose. boat runs every sandbox as a full VM.
Can Daytona and Vercel Sandbox run Docker?
Both can run Docker inside. Nested virtualization is different: Daytona offers /dev/kvm only on its Linux VM class with KVM turned on for your organization, and Vercel has none. boat has Docker and /dev/kvm on every machine.
Can they run an agent 24/7?
Daytona can: there is no session cap by default. Vercel Sandbox sessions stop after 24 hours on Pro, and the resumed sandbox starts its processes over. One agent running all month costs $245 on Daytona and $26 on boat.
Which one has a desktop for computer use?
Daytona has a VNC desktop and a computer-use API on Linux and Windows. Vercel Sandbox is headless, so you would build a desktop yourself. boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer-use and browser-control APIs.
Try boat
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