Morph Cloud vs Azure Container Apps Sandboxes
Both keep a machine's memory when it sleeps and wake it on the next request. Morph Cloud gives you a full VM with SSH and fast memory branching, while Azure Container Apps Sandboxes gives you headless microVMs inside your Azure account, with strict outbound rules and 40 regions.
The companies and products
Morph Cloud
Morph Cloud sells full virtual machines for AI agents that can be snapshotted, branched and restored with their memory, which it calls Infinibranch.
You get MorphVM instances as low-level building blocks and Devboxes as ready workspaces on top of them, with SSH, preview URLs and a tmux API for running coding agents you install yourself. Everything is billed in MCUs, where one MCU is 1 vCPU, 4 GB of RAM or 16 GB of disk for an hour. It is built for teams that fan agents out from one saved state, and it also sells managed GitHub Actions runners and a shared filesystem.
- Regions
- Not published
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes is a service inside Microsoft Azure that gives each agent or user an isolated microVM you create, suspend and resume through an SDK.
It is part of Azure Container Apps, the hyperscaler's serverless container platform, and lives in your Azure subscription as a sandbox group resource. Each sandbox boots from an OCI image or a snapshot, has its own kernel, and can be suspended with its memory and resumed in under a second. It is built for teams already on Azure that want stateful code execution with Azure networking, identity and billing.
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. “16th cheapest of 345” means 15 of the other 344 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 | Morph Cloud: price rank | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes: 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 needs Docker, emulators and long builds; Morph has Docker everywhere, Azure only on some images, and boat adds /dev/kvm and preinstalled coding agents. | 198th of 367, with limits $2,288 a month | 288th of 367, with limits $5,276 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 235th of 366, with limits $3,014 a month | 302nd of 366, with limits $6,544 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 runs that sleep with their memory and wake on the next request; Morph costs less in this use case. | 16th cheapest of 345 $154 a month | 34th cheapest of 345 $354 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 Both pause idle user machines with their memory and wake them on traffic; boat gives each user hosting on up to 50 ports and costs the least here. | 12th cheapest of 361 $905 a month | 22nd cheapest of 361 $2,260 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 Rollouts that all start from one running state suit both, since each can copy a machine with its memory into many new ones. | 86th of 360, with limits $4,847 a month | 153rd of 360, with limits $10,740 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 | 38th cheapest of 364 $675 a month | 75th cheapest of 364 $1,728 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 Morph also sells managed GitHub Actions runners; Azure has none listed, and builds that need nested virtualization fit boat's /dev/kvm best. | 39th cheapest of 377 $355 a month | 103rd cheapest of 377 $1,046 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box wants SSH; Morph has it through its gateway, Azure gives a shell only through its CLI, SDK or portal, and boat adds raw TCP. | 85th cheapest of 368 $116 a month | 322nd of 368, with limits $262 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 Azure's sandboxes are headless and Morph's desktop needs you to install the browser and agent; boat ships a 60fps desktop with Chromium and a computer use API. | 182nd of 369, with limits $595 a month | 279th of 369, with limits $1,573 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 On both Morph and Azure you install and run the browser yourself; boat has Chromium ready on its desktop. | 214th of 367, with limits $250 a month | 288th of 367, with limits $795 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 | 239th of 346, with limits $234 a month | 284th of 346, with limits $561 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 | 154th of 338, with limits $4,750 a month | 239th of 338, with limits $10,956 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 | 214th of 360, with limits $228 a month | 278th of 360, with limits $517 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 | Morph Cloud | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Full VM with its own kernel | MicroVM per sandbox with its own kernel | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Docker and systemd | Yes, including Docker in Docker and local Kubernetes | Depends on the image: azure-dev ships Docker on systemd; the default ubuntu image has only Buildah | Docker, systemd and root on every sandbox |
| Nested virtualization | Experimental | Not documented | Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Getting a shell | SSH through Morph's gateway | Interactive shell through the aca CLI, SDK or portal; no SSH | SSH, plus CLI and API exec |
| Sleep with memory and wake on request | Pause with memory; resumes on the next HTTP request, SSH or exec call | Auto-suspend with memory after an idle timeout; traffic or a start command brings it back in under a second | No; disk is saved every minute and on stop, and resume boots the machine again |
| Copy a running machine | Branch with its memory into many copies in under 250 ms | Snapshot with its memory and create new sandboxes from it | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Desktop and browser | Browser-based remote desktop; you install the browser and any computer use agent | Headless; no desktop or managed browser | 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium and a computer use API |
| Coding agents | You install the agent and drive it through a tmux API | Copilot CLI and Claude Code images, run through the exec API | Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Responses Proxy for model APIs; other secrets are handed to the machine | Group secrets usable in egress header rules; Copilot and Anthropic tokens are injected at startup | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Inbound access | Named HTTP services with optional API key auth; no raw TCP | Public HTTPS routes per published port; private endpoint from your VNet; no public IP | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6 |
| Outbound rules | Open internet, no egress rules | Allow, deny, rewrite and header rules by host, path and method; VNet integration | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist |
| Guest systems | Linux, with experimental Windows and macOS (x86) | Linux | Linux |
| Regions | Not published | 40 Azure regions, 9 of them in the EU | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with zero data retention |
| Scaling up a fleet | Account pools of 64, 256 or 1,024 vCPU by plan | 500 concurrent active cores by default; more by Azure support request | Concurrency set by plan, up to 2,000 sandboxes, self-serve |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Morph Cloud | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | 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 | Yes | 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 | No | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | Yes | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | Yes | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Yes | No |
| SSO | Not published | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Not published | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Not published | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
Neither Morph Cloud nor Azure Container Apps Sandboxes has a comparable CPU measurement: they are not in the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks run. boat did 26.69 runs per second on that Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. This page makes no speed claim between them.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Morph Cloud and Azure Container Apps Sandboxes 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 | Morph Cloud, a month | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes, 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 | $32 · Developer | $68 · Pay-as-you-go | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $121 · Team | $262 · Pay-as-you-go · 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 | $1,459 · Scale | $3,421 · Pay-as-you-go | $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 | $325 · Scale | $989 · Pay-as-you-go | $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 | $869 · Scale | $2,148 · Pay-as-you-go | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Morph Cloud: Morph bills MCUs at $0.05 each: per hour, a machine uses the largest of its vCPUs, its RAM in 4 GiB steps or its disk in 16 GiB steps. Team ($40 a month) and Scale ($250 a month) are prepaid MCU bundles at a discount, and a paused VM bills only its snapshot.
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes: Azure bills per second on the Container Apps Consumption meters for the vCPU and memory of the sandbox's tier while it runs, idle time before auto-suspend included. There is no plan fee, and some regions such as West Europe charge more.
Azure Container Apps Sandboxes: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit. You pay per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Morph costs less than Azure in all five scenarios, but its disk beyond 16 GiB per MCU raises the bill and its egress price is not published. Azure's always-on agent only gets close to its listed price with a 3-year commitment, and a default quota of 500 active cores caps a fleet until support raises it. For the 50-agent fleet, Azure needs an image that ships Docker, like azure-dev. boat is the cheapest wherever it fits, but at 1,000 short jobs at once its $2,000 plan queues starts, while both Morph and Azure fit.
| Scenario | Morph Cloud | Azure Container Apps Sandboxes | 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 Morph Cloud when
your agents branch from one running state with its memory, need a full VM with SSH, or need experimental Windows and macOS guests or managed CI runners.
- Fast branching with memory. For agents that fan out from one running state, Morph copies a VM with its memory into many branches in under 250 ms.
- A full VM you can SSH into. Every machine has Docker and SSH through Morph's gateway, so tools that expect a normal server work without picking a special image.
- Windows, macOS and managed CI. Morph lists experimental Windows and macOS (x86) guests and sells managed GitHub Actions runners from the same balance.
Use Azure Container Apps Sandboxes when
your team already runs on Azure and wants short stateful sandboxes behind strict outbound rules, in regions outside the EU.
- Fine-grained outbound rules. For agents you must hold to chosen hosts, Azure can allow, deny or rewrite each outbound request by host, path and method.
- Inside your Azure account. Teams already on Azure get Entra ID sign-in, Azure billing and their existing VNets with no new vendor.
- 40 regions. Sandboxes run in 40 Azure regions on six continents, for teams that need machines near users outside the EU.
Where boat fits
Morph and Azure are both built around machines that sleep with their memory and wake fast. If your agents instead do long, real work on a computer, with emulators, a screen, a browser and keys they must not see, boat gives them that ready, and in every scenario it fits it costs less than both.
Nested virtualization that works
An agent that builds Android apps or starts a VM needs /dev/kvm. Morph lists nested virtualization as experimental and Azure does not document it, so those jobs may not run at all. boat exposes /dev/kvm on every sandbox.
A screen and a browser ready to use
Azure's sandboxes are headless, and Morph's remote desktop leaves you to install the browser and wire up computer use. On either, you build and maintain that image yourself. boat ships a 60fps desktop with Chromium and a computer use API.
Agents driven from outside, keys kept outside
Morph drives agents by tmux keystrokes and Azure by raw exec, and both put non-model or agent tokens inside the machine. boat preinstalls seven agents with a prompt, steer and events API, and its credentials proxy covers any HTTPS API.
Use boat when your agents need a whole computer for long, real work: /dev/kvm for emulators, a desktop with Chromium, coding agents you drive from outside, and real keys kept outside the machine. Compare it one to one: boat vs Morph Cloud and boat vs Azure Container Apps Sandboxes.
Questions people ask
Is Morph Cloud cheaper than Azure Container Apps Sandboxes?
In all five scenarios on this page, yes, at roughly half or less of Azure's price: one workday coding agent is $32 a month on Morph against $68 on Azure. boat costs less than both in the four scenarios it fits.
Which is faster, Morph Cloud or Azure Container Apps Sandboxes?
Neither has been measured on the same CPU test, so there is no fair speed answer. Both wake a sleeping machine fast: Morph restores a snapshot in under 250 ms and Azure resumes in under a second.
Can both run Docker?
Morph runs Docker in every VM, including Docker in Docker and local Kubernetes. On Azure it depends on the image: azure-dev ships Docker on systemd, while the default ubuntu image has only Buildah. boat runs Docker on every sandbox.
Can I SSH into Morph Cloud or Azure sandboxes?
Morph has SSH through its gateway. Azure gives an interactive shell through the aca CLI, the SDK or the portal, with no SSH. boat has SSH plus raw TCP on its own IP.
Do I need an Azure account for Azure Container Apps Sandboxes?
Yes. It needs an Azure subscription, a Microsoft Entra ID account and the Container Apps SandboxGroup Data Owner role. Morph and boat have their own sign-up.
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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