GitHub Codespaces vs Instabox

GitHub Codespaces is a dev environment for people working on a GitHub repository: a dev container on its own VM that stops after 12 hours at most. Instabox, which launched on 2026-10-14 as an invite-only beta, gives each AI agent its own Firecracker microVM, with one machine size and 5 free machines per account.

The companies and products

GitHub Codespaces

GitHub Codespaces is GitHub's cloud development environment: a ready-to-code Linux machine for a repository, opened in the browser, VS Code or the GitHub CLI.

Codespaces is a different kind of product from boat: a dev environment for people working on a GitHub repository, not a sandbox API for agents. Each codespace is a Docker container built from the repo's dev container config, running on its own newly built VM on Azure, with 2 to 32 cores. It is built for developers and teams who want every contributor to start from the same setup, with prebuilds, port forwarding and GitHub billing.

Isolation: A Docker container on its own newly built VM, with its own virtual network
Operating system: Linux only; Windows and macOS are not supported for the remote container
Machine sizes: 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 cores, with 4 GB of memory per core
Lifetime: Stops after 30 idle minutes by default (5 to 240), and after 12 hours at most even while in use
Regions: US East, US West, Europe West and Southeast Asia
Free usage: Personal Free accounts get 120 core-hours and 15 GB-month a month, Pro 180 and 20; organizations get no free quota
Compliance: GitHub Enterprise Cloud lists SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports and ISO 27001

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
Machine size: 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB of memory, the same for every machine; 20 GB storage
Machines per account: 5, in any state: paused and stopped ones count
Price: Free during the beta; no published price yet
Access: Invite-only beta; sign in with GitHub or Google
Regions: Not published; more regions are on the roadmap as an idea
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. “274th cheapest of 367” means 273 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	GitHub Codespaces: 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 Codespaces stops every codespace after 12 hours and cannot copy one, and Instabox forks only stopped machines, while boat forks a running sandbox with its disk.	274th of 367, with limits $4,618 a month	No published price	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB A codespace stops after 12 hours at most; Instabox documents no maximum run time but pauses after 30 idle minutes unless you turn that off; boat runs until you stop it.	309th of 366, with limits $6,970 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	288th of 345, with limits $619 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, paused and stopped ones included, and Codespaces does not publish how many can run at once, so neither fits 300 user sandboxes today.	281st of 361, with limits $1,964 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	282nd of 360, with limits $9,489 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 limits how many evals run at the same time, and every codespace is created again from the repository.	295th of 364, with limits $1,519 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 Neither documents /dev/kvm, so CI jobs that build Android apps or VM images need a machine like boat's, which exposes it.	314th of 377, with limits $909 a month	No published price	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Codespaces is a polished VS Code box per repo but stops after 12 hours; Instabox adds mosh and memory pause; boat is a full VM that keeps running.	130th of 368, with limits $270 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 Codespaces has no graphical desktop; Instabox has a Linux desktop with screenshot and click control on one template; boat streams a 60fps desktop with a computer-use agent.	267th of 369, with limits $1,367 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	275th of 367, with limits $678 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	310th of 346, with limits $922 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	280th of 338, with limits $18,637 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	267th of 360, with limits $445 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	Can't run it	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	GitHub Codespaces	Instabox	boat
Isolation	A Docker container on its own newly built VM, with its own virtual network	Firecracker microVM with its own kernel and root	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts
Machine sizes	2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 cores, with 4 GB of memory per core	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 long it runs	Stops after 30 idle minutes by default (up to 240) and after 12 hours at most, even while in use	No maximum run time documented; pauses after 30 idle minutes by default, which you can change or turn off	Runs until you stop it; no session cap on paid plans
Docker	Docker and sudo inside the dev container	Docker and Docker Compose run inside	Docker and Compose run inside, with root and systemd
Nested virtualization	Not documented	Not documented	Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs
Stop and resume	Saved files are kept after a stop; running processes end	Pause keeps memory and running programs; resume usually takes about a second	Stop keeps the disk and costs nothing; start boots the machine again
Fork and snapshots	No copy or snapshot endpoint; new codespaces start from a repo, branch, pull request or prebuild	Fork copies a stopped machine only; up to 10 snapshots saved by hand, and saving stops a running machine first unless the server allows a live save	Fork a running sandbox with its disk; disk saved every minute and on stop, plus named snapshots
Starting point	Dev container config in the repository, with prebuilds built by GitHub Actions	One of four templates (agent-browser, universal, herdr or orca) or your own snapshot	Named snapshots (templates), shareable by code; no Dockerfile builds
Desktop and computer use	VS Code in the browser or on your machine, JupyterLab and a terminal; no graphical desktop	Linux desktop with a browser on one template, screenshot and click API, shareable view or control links; you bring the model	60fps Linux desktop with Chromium and a computer-use agent
Driving it from code	REST API and GitHub CLI to create, start, stop and delete; commands run over SSH	CLI, TypeScript SDK and HTTP API; an API exec call runs at most 10 minutes, 4 at once	API and SDK to create, fork, stop and run commands, on every plan
Coding agents	GitHub Copilot as a VS Code extension; other agents you install and run yourself	Templates and saved agent sign-ins in snapshots; you run the agent yourself	Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API
Keeping API keys out of the sandbox	Secrets are copied into the codespace as environment variables	Vault writes your secrets into each machine as environment variables or files	Credentials proxy: real keys never enter the sandbox, for model providers and any HTTPS API
Reaching the machine	A URL per forwarded port, private, organization or public; SSH and CLI tunnels; no public IP	HTTPS on up to 16 ports, open to anyone with the URL and offline while paused; SSH gateway with mosh	HTTPS on up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; SSH
Regions	US East, US West, Europe West and Southeast Asia	Not published	EU only: Germany, Finland, France

Every feature Battleships tracks (43)

Feature	GitHub Codespaces	Instabox	boat
Full VM (own kernel)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Docker inside	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nested virtualization	No	Not published	Yes
Root	Yes	Yes	Yes
Systemd	Not published	Not published	Yes
Desktop GUI	No	Yes	Yes
Browser	No	Yes	Yes
Computer-use API	No	Yes	Yes
SSH	Yes	Yes	Yes
Persistent disk	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pause/resume	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic snapshots	No	No	Yes
Fork/clone	No	Yes	Yes
Live fork (no pause)	No	No	Yes
Memory fork	No	No	No
Custom image (Docker or snapshot)	Yes	Yes	Yes
≥24 h sessions	No	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	No	Not published	No
Secret proxy	No	No	Yes
Secret proxy for any API	No	No	Yes
Preinstalled agents	No	Not published	Yes
Agent harness API	No	Not published	Yes
MCP server	No	Not published	No
GPU	No	No	No
Windows	No	No	No
Arm64	No	Not published	No
Self-hosting	No	Not published	No
BYOC	No	Not published	No
Open source	No	No	No
Scoped API keys	Not published	Yes	Yes
Spend limits	Yes	Not published	Yes
Usage per sandbox (API)	No	Yes	Yes
Audit logs	Yes	Not published	No
SSO	Yes	No	No
SOC 2	Yes	Not published	No
HIPAA	No	Not published	No
EU data residency	Yes	Not published	Yes
Zero data retention	Not published	Not published	Yes

Performance

GitHub CodespacesNot measured

InstaboxNot measured

boat26.69 runs/s

There is no comparable measurement for GitHub Codespaces or Instabox: neither was in the benchmark runs we use, so this page makes no speed claim between them. 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. Instabox says you are in a new machine's shell 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. GitHub Codespaces and Instabox 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	GitHub Codespaces, 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	$51 · Personal account: GitHub Free	No published price	$20 · $20/mo
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$270 · Personal account: GitHub Free · with limits	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	$3,019 · Personal account: GitHub Free	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	$850 · Personal account: GitHub Free · 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	$1,889 · Personal account: GitHub Free · with limits	No published price	$2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits

GitHub Codespaces: Codespaces bills $0.09 per core-hour while a codespace is active, plus $0.07 per GB-month for storage while it exists, stopped too. Personal accounts get a free monthly quota (120 core-hours on GitHub Free) and organizations do not.

Instabox: Instabox is free during the beta (its pricing page says "Free until we figure it out"), with 5 machines per user. It publishes no price, so no bill can be compared with Codespaces 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

Every codespace stops after 12 hours at most and after 30 idle minutes by default, so an always-on agent needs a script that restarts it, and GitHub does not publish how many codespaces can run at once. Instabox allows 5 machines per account in any state, all 4 vCPU / 8 GiB with 20 GB storage, so the 50-agent and user-sandbox scenarios do not fit it today, and it cannot be priced in any scenario because it publishes no rate. boat has no session cap on paid plans, but a burst of 1,000 short jobs needs more starts per hour and per day than its $2,000 plan allows.

Scenario	GitHub Codespaces	Instabox	boat
One coding agent, workdays	None that bite	no published per-resource rate	None that bite
One agent that never stops	Personal account: GitHub Free: sessions capped at 12 h	no published per-resource rate	None that bite
50 agents in parallel	how many machines can run at once: limit not published, probably fine at 50 (the typical published limit is 50)	no published per-resource rate	None that bite
Sandboxes for your users	not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 300; the typical published limit is 50)	no published per-resource rate	None that bite
1,000 short jobs at once	not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 1,000; the typical published limit is 50)	no published per-resource rate	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 GitHub Codespaces when

your developers want a ready VS Code environment for a GitHub repository, opened from a branch or pull request, on a machine of up to 32 cores in the US, EU or Asia.

Built into GitHub. Useful if your team lives on GitHub: open a codespace from any repo, branch or pull request, with the dev container already set up.
Bigger machines. Useful for heavy builds: codespaces come in 2 to 32 cores with 4 GB of memory per core, while Instabox has one 4 vCPU size.
Regions in the US, EU and Asia. Useful if your developers are spread out: codespaces run in US East, US West, Europe West and Southeast Asia.

Use Instabox when

you want to try up to 5 free 4 vCPU / 8 GiB agent machines during its beta, with memory pause and mosh.

Free during the beta. Useful for trying things out: during the beta every account can run 5 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GiB for free.
Pause with memory. Useful for agents that pick up where they left off: a paused machine keeps its memory and running programs.
SSH gateway with mosh. Useful for long terminal sessions: its SSH gateway relays mosh, so a session survives sleep and network changes.

Where boat fits

If what you are really running is agents driven from your own code, look at boat. Codespaces is built for people editing a repository and stops after 12 hours, and Instabox is a free beta with one machine size, 5 machines per account and no published terms. boat gives each agent a full VM that keeps running, forks while it works and keeps keys outside.

Fork work without stopping it

Codespaces has no way to copy a codespace, so each attempt starts again from the repository. Instabox forks only stopped machines, which ends the agent's running programs. boat forks a running sandbox while the original keeps working.

/dev/kvm and ports you control

Neither documents /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and microVMs are out. Codespaces has no public IP or raw TCP, and Instabox port URLs are open to anyone who finds them. boat has /dev/kvm, token-protected HTTPS on 50 ports and raw TCP.

Agents driven from outside, keys kept out

On both, you install the agent and write the code that starts and watches it, and your API keys sit inside as environment variables any code can read. boat preinstalls coding agents with a prompt, steer and events API, and its credentials proxy keeps real keys outside.

Use boat when your code starts and drives agents that work for hours or days: full VMs with /dev/kvm, a desktop and private port URLs, built-in coding agents with keys kept outside, and machines that fork while running, on terms published today. Compare it one to one: boat vs GitHub Codespaces and boat vs Instabox.

Questions people ask

Is GitHub Codespaces cheaper than Instabox?

It can't be compared yet. Instabox is free during its beta and publishes no price, so there is no bill to set against Codespaces, which charges $0.09 per core-hour plus $0.07 per GB-month of storage. One coding agent on workdays comes to $51 a month on Codespaces and $20 a month on boat.

Which is faster, GitHub Codespaces or Instabox?

Neither has a comparable CPU measurement, so we can't say. Instabox says you are in a new machine's shell in under a second, and its docs say a paused machine usually resumes in about a second; neither has been measured here. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the same benchmark loop we use for other providers.

Can GitHub Codespaces and Instabox run Docker?

Yes, both run Docker inside: Codespaces in the dev container with sudo, Instabox with Docker Compose too. Neither documents /dev/kvm, so Android emulators and microVMs are not a documented setup on either. Every boat machine has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.

Can I run an AI agent 24/7 on Codespaces or Instabox?

Not on Codespaces without restarts: every codespace stops after 12 hours at most, even while in use. Instabox documents no maximum run time, but new machines pause after 30 idle minutes unless you turn that off, and you get 5 machines. A boat sandbox runs until you stop it, with no session cap on paid plans.

Is Instabox free?

Yes, for now. Its pricing page says it is free until they figure out pricing, with 5 machines of 4 vCPU and 8 GB per user. No end date or later price is published, and access is an invite-only beta.

Is boat SOC 2 compliant?

SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status at status.ascii.dev and our data retention policy at docs.boat.dev/data-retention.

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