Islo vs Unikraft Cloud
Both run each workload in its own microVM. Islo is built for coding agents, with agents preinstalled and a gateway that controls and logs outbound traffic, while Unikraft Cloud turns a Dockerfile into a tiny VM that wakes in milliseconds and sleeps when traffic stops.
The companies and products
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.
- Launched
- May 4, 2026
Unikraft Cloud
Unikraft Cloud is a microVM cloud from Unikraft Inc. that runs any Dockerfile-based workload as a minimal Linux microVM with millisecond cold starts and scale-to-zero.
Your Dockerfile becomes the VM image at build time, and each instance runs on a heavily customized Firecracker VMM, so it boots in milliseconds and can go into standby when no traffic arrives. It is a general compute platform built for dense, bursty work such as HTTP services, headless browsers and agent fleets, sold as flat self-serve plans plus Enterprise dedicated hosts, on-prem and bring your own cloud. It is not a dev machine you log into: instances are reached through services, the CLI and a sandbox plugin for commands and files.
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. “30th cheapest of 366” means 29 of the other 365 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 | Islo: price rank | Unikraft Cloud: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Islo runs Docker inside its microVMs, while Unikraft builds your Dockerfile into the VM itself and documents no container runtime inside; boat adds /dev/kvm and a desktop on top of Docker. | 326th of 367, with limits $7,402 a month | Can't run it | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Islo keeps a VM running with no session cap and can pause an idle assistant with its memory, while Unikraft's Team pool is 8 GiB of memory shared by every running instance. | 30th cheapest of 366 $9,928 a month | Can't run it | 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 Short runs that sleep between calls suit Unikraft, but self-serve plans cap you at 24 running instances, and Islo's Team plan is reported at 50 running sandboxes. | 153rd of 345, with limits $503 a month | Can't run it | 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 above Islo's reported 50 on Team and Unikraft's 24 running instances on Pro, so both need a custom contract; boat fits it on a paid plan. | 171st of 361, with limits $3,160 a month | Can't run it | 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 | 167th of 360, with limits $15,265 a month | Can't run it | 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; Unikraft has no self-serve pool big enough for many eval sandboxes at once. | 198th of 364, with limits $2,456 a month | Can't run it | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month | 119th cheapest of 377 $1,507 a month | Can't run it | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both can keep a box around all month; Islo has SSH through its CLI, while Unikraft has no SSH yet, so you work through its CLI and sandbox plugin. | 112th cheapest of 368 $402 a month | 219th of 368, with limits $39 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 Neither has a desktop or computer-use API built in, so computer-use agents need a screen you build yourself, while boat streams one at 60fps. | 310th of 369, with limits $2,210 a month | Can't run it | 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 Islo has a browser for testing inside the sandbox, Unikraft runs your own headless Chrome from a Dockerfile, and boat gives each sandbox Chromium on a visible desktop. | 113th of 367, with limits $1,105 a month | Can't run it | 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 | 66th cheapest of 346 $748 a month | Can't run it | 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 | 265th of 338, with limits $14,966 a month | Can't run it | 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 | 47th of 360, with limits $746 a month | Can't run it | 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 | Islo | Unikraft Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | A microVM with its own kernel for each sandbox | A minimal Linux microVM on a customized Firecracker VMM; full VMs on Enterprise | A full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine size | You choose CPU cores, memory and disk per sandbox, for example 4 vCPU / 8 GiB | A plan pool shared by all running instances: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB, 8 vCPU / 8 GiB or 24 vCPU / 32 GiB | 4 vCPU / 8 GB by default, up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB per sandbox on the $100 plan and above |
| Docker inside | Docker inside and sudo | Runs as root; the Dockerfile becomes the VM image, with no container runtime inside documented | Docker, systemd and root, like any Ubuntu machine |
| Nested virtualization | No /dev/kvm or nested virtualization documented | Yes, with a per-instance flag and permission, Enterprise only | /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs on every plan |
| Desktop and computer use | A browser inside the sandbox for testing; no desktop or computer-use API | None built in; you can run your own headless browser from a Dockerfile | 60fps desktop with Chromium, a computer-use API and an embeddable stream |
| Getting a shell | SSH and port-forward through the Islo CLI | No SSH yet; commands and files go through the sandbox plugin and CLI | SSH into every sandbox, or drive it through the API |
| Idle and wake | Pause keeps files, processes and memory; can pause after idle time and resume on the next exec, file access or webhook | Standby after a 1 second idle cooldown by default; incoming traffic wakes an instance in milliseconds, with memory kept in stateful mode | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing and boots again on start |
| Fork and checkpoints | Snapshot a running sandbox's files, then start new sandboxes from it | Checkpoint memory and volumes of a running microVM with a pause of a few milliseconds, then start new instances from it | Fork a running sandbox with its disk; snapshots every minute |
| Inbound access | HTTPS share links anyone with the URL can open, expiring after 24 hours by default; no raw TCP over shares | Services on its load balancer: HTTP on 80, HTTPS on 443, TLS-wrapped TCP on other ports; no public IP per instance | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; its own IP |
| Outbound rules and logs | Gateway allows or denies by host, path and HTTP method, with default deny, rate limits and a log of every request | Network shield filters traffic, Enterprise only, limited access | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist; usage API and spend limits |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Gateway injects stored credentials into outbound requests for any host | Network shield can inject secrets into traffic, Enterprise only, limited access | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API, on every plan; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled; factory lines run agent steps on a schedule, webhook or GitHub, Slack and Linear events | None preinstalled; you bring the agent in your own image | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Sandboxes at once | Free 5 and Team 50 running sandboxes per launch coverage; paused ones do not count; more by contract | 2, 8 or 24 running instances on Hobby, Team or Pro; sleeping ones do not count; more on Enterprise | 100 to 2,000 running sandboxes by plan, raised by adding seats |
| Where it runs | US West, or inside your own cloud account with BYOC | Dallas, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Singapore and Washington DC; on-prem and BYOC on Enterprise | EU only: Germany, Finland, France; EU data residency and zero data retention |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Islo | Unikraft Cloud | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | Yes | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | 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) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | Yes | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | Yes | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | Not published | 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 | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | Yes | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | No | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | Yes | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | Yes | 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) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Yes | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Not published | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Not published | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | No | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for Islo or Unikraft Cloud: neither was in StarSling's public sandbox benchmark run. In that run of 2026-09-29, boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. Unikraft states cold starts under 10 ms, which is its own figure and measures start time, not CPU speed.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Islo and Unikraft Cloud 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 | Islo, a month | Unikraft Cloud, 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 | $101 · Free | $39 · Hobby | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $420 · Free | $39 · Hobby | $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 | $4,863 · Team | Can't run it | $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 | $1,382 · Team · with limits | Can't run it | $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 | $3,053 · Team · with limits | Can't run it | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Islo: Islo bills each CPU core and each GB of memory and disk you give a sandbox while it runs, with no plan fee. An idle sandbox keeps billing until a pause-after-idle timer fires, and egress has no published price.
Unikraft Cloud: Unikraft charges a flat monthly fee for a pool of running capacity: free for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB, $39 for 8 vCPU / 8 GiB, $199 for 24 vCPU / 32 GiB. It publishes no per-hour rate, so anything bigger is an Enterprise quote.
Unikraft Cloud: 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
Unikraft's limits are pools every running instance shares: Team has 8 vCPU and 8 GiB in total, so one 4 vCPU / 8 GB agent fills it, and the 50-agent, user-sandbox and burst scenarios fit no self-serve plan. Islo fits 50 agents on Team, but its reported 50 running sandboxes keep 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs out without a custom contract. boat runs 100 sandboxes at once from its first paid plan, but at 1,000 short jobs at once its $2,000 plan queues starts. Neither Islo nor Unikraft publishes an egress price.
| Scenario | Islo | Unikraft Cloud | 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 Islo when
you run coding agents that need Docker, full-size machines billed as they run, per-host egress rules with a log of every call, or a US region or your own cloud account.
- Built for coding agents. Useful if you run coding agents: Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex come preinstalled, with Docker inside each sandbox.
- Egress rules and request logs. Useful if you must control what agents reach: Islo allows or blocks each host, path and method, and logs every call.
- Big machines, billed as they run. Useful when one agent needs a full 4 vCPU / 8 GB machine: Islo bills per core and GB, not a small shared pool.
Use Unikraft Cloud when
you run many small services or headless browsers that sleep most of the time and must wake in milliseconds, want a flat monthly bill, or need US and Asia regions.
- Millisecond starts and scale-to-zero. Best for many small services that sleep most of the time and must answer the next request in milliseconds.
- A flat monthly bill. Useful if you want a fixed price: Hobby is free and Team is a flat fee, with sleeping instances not counted.
- Regions in the US, EU and Asia. Unikraft runs in Dallas, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Singapore and Washington DC, with more metros on request.
Where boat fits
If your agents need a whole machine and not just a shell or a small service, look at boat. Each sandbox is a full VM with Docker, systemd, /dev/kvm, a desktop and ports you can host on, and paid plans run 100 to 2,000 sandboxes at once without a sales call.
A desktop agents can see and use
Neither Islo nor Unikraft Cloud has a screen or a computer-use API. An agent that must check a UI or click through a real app needs you to build a VNC stack and a control layer into every image.
Docker and /dev/kvm on every plan
Islo documents no /dev/kvm, and Unikraft documents no container runtime inside and keeps nested virtualization for Enterprise. Android emulators and tools that start their own VMs stop at the first boot without it.
Fleets of full-size sandboxes
Fifty agents at 4 vCPU / 8 GB fit no self-serve Unikraft pool, and 300 at once is above Islo's reported 50 on Team. Both mean a custom contract; boat runs 100 to 2,000 at once by plan.
Use boat when your agents need a real machine to work in: Docker and /dev/kvm, a desktop for computer use, ports you can host on, and up to 2,000 sandboxes at once in the EU. Compare it one to one: boat vs Islo and boat vs Unikraft Cloud.
Questions people ask
Is Islo cheaper than Unikraft Cloud?
For one agent, Unikraft is cheaper: one coding agent on workdays comes to $39 on Unikraft's Team pool and $101 on Islo, and one agent running all month comes to $39 versus $420. For 50 agents in parallel, Islo comes to $4,863 a month, while no self-serve Unikraft plan is big enough. boat comes to $20, $26 and $317 a month for the same three.
Which one is faster?
Unikraft starts faster: its microVMs cold boot in milliseconds and wake on the next request. Neither Islo nor Unikraft has a public CPU benchmark we can compare. boat did 26.69 runs per second in StarSling's benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can Islo or Unikraft Cloud run Docker?
Islo runs Docker inside its microVMs. Unikraft uses your Dockerfile to build the VM's filesystem, and its docs do not describe a container runtime inside a running instance. boat gives every sandbox Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can I SSH into them?
Islo gives you SSH and port-forwarding through its CLI. Unikraft has no SSH yet, so you run commands and move files through its sandbox plugin and CLI. You can SSH into every boat sandbox.
Can I limit what an agent reaches on the internet?
On Islo, yes: a gateway profile allows or denies traffic by host, path and HTTP method and logs each request. Unikraft's network shield filters traffic on Enterprise only, in limited access. boat has open internet, while its credentials proxy keeps real API keys out of the sandbox.
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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