Docker Cloud Sandboxes vs Islo

Both put each coding agent in its own microVM with Docker inside. Docker Cloud Sandboxes is the sbx sandbox from your laptop moved to the cloud, with sessions capped at 24 hours and 10 at once, while Islo runs with no session cap and routes traffic through a gateway with per-host rules and request logs.

The companies and products

Docker Cloud Sandboxes

Docker Cloud Sandboxes runs Docker's sbx coding-agent microVMs on Docker-managed compute instead of your laptop.

Each sandbox is a microVM with its own Linux kernel and its own Docker Engine, started from the same sbx CLI you use locally, with Claude Code, Codex and other agents ready to run. You can move a sandbox from your laptop to the cloud and back, publish HTTPS ports and SSH in. It launched on September 24, 2026, is billed pay-as-you-go on a personal Docker account, and is built for developers who want their local agent sandboxes to keep going off their machine.

Isolation: MicroVM per sandbox with its own Linux kernel and its own Docker Engine
Launched: September 24, 2026
Machine sizes: 1 vCPU / 2 GiB up to 16 vCPU / 32 GiB, CPU only, amd64 or arm64 by account
Session length: 1 hour by default, extendable to 24 hours from creation
Default quota: 10 concurrent and 50 stored sandboxes per account
Account: Pay-as-you-go plan on a personal Docker account, even inside an organization
Regions: Not published

Islo

Islo is an agent sandbox from Incredibuild: each coding agent gets its own microVM, with network rules and credentials handled at a gateway.

An Islo sandbox is a Linux microVM with its own kernel, built from a container image, with Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled. Outbound traffic can pass through a gateway that allows or blocks hosts, injects credentials and logs every request. It is built for teams that run coding agents, evals and RL rollouts in the background, on Islo's cloud or in their own cloud account.

Maker: Incredibuild, a build acceleration company based in Tel Aviv
Launched: May 4, 2026
Isolation: A microVM with its own kernel for each agent computer
Regions: US West on Islo's cloud; BYOC puts the control plane and sandboxes in your own cloud account
Billing: CPU per core, memory per GB and disk per GB while a sandbox runs, billed per hour; signup credits with no card
Compliance: No certification named on its site; compliance documents on request from support

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. “280th cheapest of 367” means 279 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	Docker Cloud Sandboxes: price rank	Islo: price rank	boat: price rank
Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Neither Docker nor Islo documents /dev/kvm or a desktop, so a software factory that runs Android emulators or tests on a screen fits boat better.	280th of 367, with limits $4,928 a month	326th of 367, with limits $7,402 a month	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Islo fits an assistant that lives on its machine all month, since it has no session cap, while Docker ends each sandbox 24 hours after creation; boat fits too with no cap on paid plans.	276th of 366, with limits $5,110 a month	30th cheapest of 366 $9,928 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 Docker fits short code runs a little better than Islo here, with small sandboxes billed by the second and stopped with their memory between runs.	119th of 345, with limits $233 a month	153rd of 345, with limits $503 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 for your users at once is more than Docker's default of 10 or Islo's reported 50 on Team, while boat runs up to 2,000.	136th of 361, with limits $1,628 a month	171st of 361, with limits $3,160 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	114th of 360, with limits $7,000 a month	167th of 360, with limits $15,265 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 Islo has a built-in Harbor integration and gateway rules that stop trials from looking up answers; boat runs evals on more sandboxes at once.	167th of 364, with limits $1,400 a month	198th of 364, with limits $2,456 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 Islo fits CI runners with no session cap; boat also exposes /dev/kvm for builds that need emulators or VMs, which neither Docker nor Islo documents.	172nd of 377, with limits $672 a month	119th cheapest of 377 $1,507 a month	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box that stays on all month fits Islo and boat, while Docker's sandboxes stop 24 hours after creation.	127th of 368, with limits $204 a month	112th cheapest of 368 $402 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 Both Docker and Islo are headless with no computer-use API, while boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium that agents can see and click.	268th of 369, with limits $1,400 a month	310th of 369, with limits $2,210 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	277th of 367, with limits $700 a month	113th of 367, with limits $1,105 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	262nd of 346, with limits $350 a month	66th cheapest of 346 $748 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	190th of 338, with limits $7,000 a month	265th of 338, with limits $14,966 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	248th of 360, with limits $350 a month	47th of 360, with limits $746 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	Docker Cloud Sandboxes	Islo	boat
Isolation	MicroVM with its own Linux kernel; hypervisor not named	MicroVM with its own kernel, built from a container image	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts
Session length	1 hour by default, at most 24 hours from creation	No published cap; runs until you stop it or a lifecycle rule fires	No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live
Sandboxes at once	10 by default; no published way to raise it	Free 5 and Team 50 running per launch coverage; more by contract	100 on the $20 plan, up to 2,000 on higher plans, self-serve
Stop and resume	Stop keeps memory and files; resume picks up where it left off	Pause keeps files, processes and memory; can pause after idle and wake on the next exec, file access or webhook	Disk saved every minute and on stop; resume boots the machine again
Fork	Snapshot a running sandbox with disk or disk and memory, restore it as a new one	Snapshot a running sandbox's files, then start new sandboxes from it	Fork a running sandbox with its disk
Docker and nested virtualization	Its own Docker Engine; no /dev/kvm documented	Docker inside and sudo; no /dev/kvm documented	Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine
Desktop and browser	Terminal sessions only	A browser inside the sandbox for testing; no desktop or computer-use API	60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer use and browser control
Inbound access	Public HTTPS URL per published port, not behind Docker sign-in; SSH with Docker-issued certificates	HTTPS share links anyone with the URL can open, expiring after 24 hours by default; SSH and port-forward through the CLI	HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6
Outbound rules	Allow and deny rules by host, with allow-all, balanced and deny-all presets	Gateway profiles allow or deny by host, path and HTTP method, with default deny, rate limits and content filters	Open internet, no provider-side allowlist
Request logs	Not documented	Per-request gateway logs of what each agent called and what was blocked, streamed to your SIEM	Usage API and spend limits; no per-request log of outbound calls
Keeping API keys out of the sandbox	Cloud proxy sets the auth header for built-in AI services and custom hosts	Gateway injects stored credentials into outbound requests for any host	Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out
Coding agents	Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, OpenCode and more, attached to from the sbx CLI	Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex; factory lines run agent steps on a schedule, webhook or GitHub, Slack and Linear events	Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API to drive them from outside
Laptop and cloud	Same microVM and CLI locally or in the cloud; move a sandbox either way	Islo's cloud or your own cloud account with BYOC	Cloud only
Regions	Not published	US West, or your own cloud account with BYOC	EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with EU data residency

Every feature Battleships tracks (43)

Feature	Docker Cloud Sandboxes	Islo	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	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pause/resume	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic snapshots	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fork/clone	Yes	Yes	Yes
Live fork (no pause)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Memory fork	Yes	No	No
Custom image (Docker or snapshot)	Yes	Yes	Yes
≥24 h sessions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Idle auto-stop	No	Yes	No
Wake on request	Not published	Yes	No
HTTPS preview URLs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Raw TCP inbound	Not published	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	No	No
GPU	No	No	No
Windows	No	No	No
Arm64	Yes	No	No
Self-hosting	No	No	No
BYOC	No	Yes	No
Open source	No	No	No
Scoped API keys	Not published	Not published	Yes
Spend limits	Not published	Not published	Yes
Usage per sandbox (API)	No	Yes	Yes
Audit logs	Not published	Yes	No
SSO	Yes	Yes	No
SOC 2	No	Not published	No
HIPAA	No	Not published	No
EU data residency	No	No	Yes
Zero data retention	Not published	Not published	Yes

Performance

Docker Cloud SandboxesNot measured

IsloNot measured

boat26.69 runs/s

There is no comparable measurement for Docker Cloud Sandboxes or Islo: neither is in the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks runs, and Docker does not say what hardware it uses. 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. Docker Cloud Sandboxes and Islo 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	Docker Cloud Sandboxes, a month	Islo, 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	$49 · Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go)	$101 · Free	$20 · $20/mo
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$204 · Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go) · with limits	$420 · Free	$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	$2,464 · Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go) · with limits	$4,863 · Team	$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	$700 · Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go) · with limits	$1,382 · Team · 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	$1,400 · Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go) · with limits	$3,053 · Team · with limits	$2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits

Docker Cloud Sandboxes: Docker bills per second for the size you pick, from $0.07 an hour for 1 vCPU / 2 GiB to $1.12 an hour for 16 vCPU / 32 GiB, with no monthly fee. A stopped sandbox costs nothing, and volumes and egress are free.

Islo: Islo bills each CPU core and each GB of memory and disk while a sandbox runs, with no plan fee. An idle sandbox keeps billing until a pause-after-idle timer fires, and egress has no published price.

Islo: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.

Limits in those scenarios

Docker ends every sandbox 24 hours after creation, so one agent that never stops does not fit, and its default of 10 concurrent sandboxes rules it out for 50 agents in parallel, sandboxes for your users and 1,000 short jobs at once. Islo fits the always-on agent and the 50-agent fleet, but its reported Team limit of 50 running sandboxes rules it out for 300 user sandboxes and the 1,000-job burst, and its totals leave out egress. boat fits every scenario except the burst, where its start limits queue the jobs even on the $2,000 plan.

Scenario	Docker Cloud Sandboxes	Islo	boat
One coding agent, workdays	None that bite	egress price not published	None that bite
One agent that never stops	Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go): sessions capped at 24 h	egress price not published	None that bite
50 agents in parallel	Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go): max 10 concurrent	egress price not published	None that bite
Sandboxes for your users	Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go): max 10 concurrent	Team: max 50 concurrent egress price not published	None that bite
1,000 short jobs at once	Docker Agentic Platform (pay-as-you-go): max 10 concurrent	Team: max 50 concurrent egress price not published	max 2,400 starts/day (needs ~6,667) max 600 starts/hour (needs ~1,000) bursts above 90 starts/min are queued (a burst of 333 takes ~4 min to start)

Which one should you use?

Use Docker Cloud Sandboxes when

you already run agents in sbx on your laptop and want a few to keep going in the cloud for up to a day, with memory kept across stops and forks.

The same sandbox on your laptop. If you already run sbx locally, the cloud is the same microVM and CLI, and you can move a sandbox either way.
Fork with memory. Useful for branching a running agent: snapshot it with its memory and restore it as a new sandbox, which Islo does not do.
Per-second billing for short runs. Small sandboxes bill by the second with no monthly fee, so brief code runs cost less than on Islo.

Use Islo when

agents run for days, you need per-host egress rules with a log of every outbound call, or your data must stay in the US or your own cloud account.

No session cap. Agents that run for days or all month fit in one Islo sandbox, while Docker ends each at 24 hours.
Gateway rules and request logs. Teams that must control egress get rules by host, path and method, plus a log of every outbound call.
US region or your own cloud. Useful if data must stay in the US or your own cloud account, since Islo runs in US West or under BYOC.

Where boat fits

Look at boat when your agents need more than a terminal: a desktop to click through, /dev/kvm for emulators, or ports you can host on. It also suits teams that run dozens or hundreds of agents at once for days, past Docker's 24 hours and 10 sandboxes and Islo's reported 50 on Team.

A screen agents can use

Docker's cloud sandboxes are terminal only and Islo's are headless with a test browser, so an agent that must click through a UI needs a VNC stack and control layer you build into each image. boat ships a 60fps desktop with computer use.

Nested virtualization

Neither Docker nor Islo documents /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and tools that boot their own VM stop at the first boot or crawl in software emulation. Every boat machine has /dev/kvm, root, systemd and Docker.

Long, wide and reachable

Docker stops agents at 24 hours and runs 10 at once; Islo shares ports through links that expire and anyone can open. boat has no session cap on paid plans, up to 2,000 sandboxes, and token-protected HTTPS on 50 ports plus raw TCP.

Use boat when your agents need a desktop, /dev/kvm or ports you can host on, run for days or by the hundreds, or have to be driven from your own app through an API. Compare it one to one: boat vs Docker Cloud Sandboxes and boat vs Islo.

Questions people ask

Is Docker Cloud Sandboxes cheaper than Islo?

Yes, for one coding agent on workdays: $49 a month on Docker against $101 on Islo for 4 vCPU / 8 GiB. Docker does not fit the other scenarios because of its 24-hour cap or 10 sandboxes at once. boat comes to $20 a month for the same workday agent.

Which is faster, Docker Cloud Sandboxes or Islo?

There is no comparable CPU measurement for either one: neither is in the public benchmark runs we use. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.

Can I run an agent for more than 24 hours?

On Islo, yes: it publishes no session cap, and a sandbox runs until you stop it or a lifecycle rule fires. A Docker cloud sandbox cannot go past 24 hours from creation. boat has no session cap on paid plans.

Can Docker Cloud Sandboxes and Islo run Docker inside?

Both run Docker inside their microVMs, but neither documents /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and nested VMs are out. boat gives every machine Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm.

Which one controls outbound traffic better?

Both let you allow or deny hosts. Islo's gateway also filters by path and HTTP method, rate-limits, and logs every request to your SIEM. boat leaves the internet open, while its credentials proxy keeps real API keys out of the sandbox.

Do either have a desktop for computer-use agents?

No. Docker's cloud sandboxes are terminal sessions, and Islo has a browser for testing but no desktop or computer-use API. boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium on every sandbox.

Try boat

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