Namespace vs Google Agent Runtime
Namespace is a build and dev platform: CI runners, caches and Devboxes with Docker that stop after at most 24 hours. Google Agent Runtime, once called Vertex AI Agent Engine, hosts your agent code on Google Cloud and gives it sandboxes that run as an unprivileged user with no Docker, kept for up to 7 days.
The companies and products
Namespace
Namespace is a dev platform for fast builds, tests and coding environments: CI runners, build caches and Devboxes, on its own hardware.
Most of Namespace is CI: a faster drop-in for GitHub Actions runners, with Docker, Bazel, Turborepo and Nix caching. Its Devboxes are remote Linux and macOS machines with persistent storage, made for people and AI coding agents, and they also host sessions for Claude Managed Agents, Cursor Cloud Agents and Devin. It is a different kind of product from boat, so this page compares the part where they overlap: a machine an agent works on.
- Products
- GitHub Actions runners, Docker, Bazel, Turborepo and Nix caching, Devboxes, and a compute API
- Hardware
- Its own hardware in its own racks: AMD EPYC for Linux and Windows, Apple M4 Pro or M5 Max for macOS
- Linux Devboxes
- Run from a container image you choose and include Docker; the docs do not say whether each one has its own kernel
- Funding
- Announced a $42M Series B
- Compliance
- Trust center lists SOC 2 Type II
Google Agent Runtime
Google Agent Runtime is the agent hosting part of Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on Google Cloud, renamed from Vertex AI Agent Engine in April 2026.
It is a hyperscaler service, not a sandbox company. Agent Runtime deploys agents you build with ADK, LangGraph, LangChain, AG2 or LlamaIndex and bills them only while they work on a turn. Next to it, Agent Sandbox gives those agents a place to run code: a Code Execution sandbox, a shell or custom container sandbox, and a Computer Use browser. All of them run as secure containers inside your Google Cloud project.
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. “80th cheapest of 377” means 79 of the other 376 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 | Namespace: price rank | Google Agent Runtime: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Namespace Devboxes have Docker, while Google's sandboxes run without root or Docker, so Namespace fits a software factory better; boat adds no session cap and coding agents built in. | 39th of 367, with limits $3,495 a month | 295th of 367, with limits $5,801 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Google keeps a sandbox for up to 7 days and Namespace stops a Devbox after at most 24 hours, so Google fits an always-on assistant better; boat has no session cap on paid plans. | 303rd of 366, with limits $6,645 a month | 28th cheapest of 366 $7,519 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 are close here: Google has a ready Python Code Execution sandbox and Namespace bills per minute with no plan fee, while boat's start limits make big bursts a compromise. | 247th of 345, with limits $250 a month | 254th of 345, with limits $275 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 | 284th of 361, with limits $2,068 a month | 280th of 361, with limits $1,916 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 | 356th of 360, with limits $9,012 a month | 128th of 360, with limits $8,240 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 | 282nd of 364, with limits $1,043 a month | 79th cheapest of 364 $2,060 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 Both fit, and CI runners with build caches are Namespace's main product; boat runs CI jobs on full VMs with Docker and /dev/kvm. | 80th cheapest of 377 $765 a month | 98th cheapest of 377 $989 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Namespace Devboxes have SSH and stop when idle but end after at most 24 hours, and Google has no SSH at all; a boat machine stays up as long as you want. | 126th of 368, with limits $168 a month | 311th of 368, with limits $241 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 Namespace's screenshot and click API works on macOS Devboxes only and Google gives you only a browser, while boat streams a 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium. | 67th of 369, with limits $982 a month | 283rd of 369, with limits $1,648 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 Google runs a real Chromium you can drive over CDP, while Namespace has no managed browser; boat ships Chromium with browser control. | 285th of 367, with limits $789 a month | 102nd of 367, with limits $824 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 | 259th of 346, with limits $332 a month | 53rd cheapest of 346 $515 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 | 226th of 338, with limits $9,012 a month | 210th of 338, with limits $8,240 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 | 242nd of 360, with limits $339 a month | 260th of 360, with limits $412 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 Only Namespace fits: it runs macOS on Apple Silicon, and neither Google's sandboxes nor boat run macOS. | 6th cheapest of 36 $1,205 a month | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Namespace | Google Agent Runtime | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | CI runners, build caches and Devboxes on Namespace's own hardware | Managed agent hosting plus code, shell and browser sandboxes inside your Google Cloud project | Agent sandboxes: a full VM per agent, with agents built in |
| Isolation | Linux Devboxes run from a container image; the docs do not say if each has its own kernel | Secure container sandboxing inside Google Cloud | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| CPU speed (Node.js build-and-test, 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 21.79 runs/s | Not measured | 26.69 runs/s |
| Root, Docker and nested virtualization | Docker in Linux Devboxes; /dev/kvm on Linux compute instances | Runs as appuser with no sudo; images must not need root; no Docker or /dev/kvm documented | Root, systemd, Docker and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| How long a session can run | Devboxes stop after 4, 5 or 24 hours by plan, 24 at most | Sandbox TTL up to 7 days for a custom container, 14 days for Code Execution | No session cap on paid plans |
| Shell access | SSH into Devboxes | execute_bash() API calls; each command runs in a new shell; no SSH | SSH, plus an API for commands |
| Desktop and computer use | Screenshot and click API on macOS Devboxes only; VNC and RDP for compute instances | A browser in a container with a VNC live view, a click and type API, and CDP | 60fps Linux desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Files after a stop | A stopped Devbox keeps its storage, billed at $0.20 per GB-month used | Pause keeps the file system at a lower, unpublished rate; deleted when the TTL ends | Snapshots every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Snapshots and branching | No fork; compute instances can suspend and resume with RAM kept | Snapshots keep memory and files; start many sandboxes from one snapshot | Fork a running sandbox; resume reboots from disk |
| Reaching the sandbox | HTTPS URLs that need a Namespace login, TCP through a CLI port-forward; no public IP | Through Google's API or a private endpoint in your VPC; no public URL documented | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Outbound internet | Egress policies per Devbox blueprint, runner or instance, by domain | Off unless the template turns it on; can route through your VPC, Cloud NAT and firewall | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| Coding agents | Hosts Claude Managed Agents, Cursor and Devin sessions; an MCP server creates Devboxes | Agent Runtime hosts ADK and LangGraph agents; Managed Agents API (Preview) runs Antigravity | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Operating systems | Linux, macOS on Apple Silicon, and Windows on Team plans and up | Linux only | Linux only; Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | Several regions; region-exclusive data residency on Enterprise | 23 locations in the US, Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia and Brazil | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Namespace | Google Agent Runtime | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | No | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | 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 | No | No |
| Wake on request | Yes | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | No | 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 and Namespace did 21.79, so the same build takes about a fifth longer on Namespace. Google Agent Runtime and its sandboxes were not part of that run, so there is no comparable measurement for Google.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Namespace measured on: Linux compute instance (unit-minutes, PAYG/overage $0.0015). Google Agent Runtime has 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 | Namespace, a month | Google Agent Runtime, 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 | $50 · Devbox (pay as you go) | $73 · Pay as you go | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $176 · Devbox (pay as you go) · with limits | $301 · Pay as you go | $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 | $2,198 · Devbox (pay as you go) | $3,626 · Pay as you go · with limits | $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 | $1,214 · Devbox (pay as you go) | $1,030 · 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 | $3,237 · Devbox (pay as you go) | $2,060 · Pay as you go | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Namespace: Devboxes are billed in Devbox Minutes at $0.004 each, pay as you go on every plan; a 4 vCPU / 8 GB Devbox uses one a minute. Plan minutes on Team and Business cover runners and instances, not Devboxes, and stored files cost $0.20 per GB-month.
Google Agent Runtime: Google bills $0.085 per vCPU-hour and $0.009 per GiB-hour allocated, with the first 50 vCPU-hours and 100 GiB-hours free each month. Runtime skips idle time between turns, but sandboxes are billed while they exist, and disk and egress rates are not published.
Google Agent Runtime: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
On Namespace the limit is time: a Devbox is shut down after at most 24 hours, so the agent that never stops does not fit without daily restarts. On Google the limit is what runs inside: the 50-agent fleet does not fit because the sandboxes have no Docker, and every Google row leaves disk and egress unpriced. Neither publishes an egress price. On boat the 1,000-job burst is the problem, since starts are capped at 90 a minute and 2,400 a day on the $2,000 plan.
| Scenario | Namespace | Google Agent Runtime | 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 Namespace when
you need Docker and SSH on a dev machine, macOS or Windows, or faster GitHub Actions runners with build caches.
- Docker and SSH on a dev machine. Useful if your agents run docker compose or apt installs: Namespace Devboxes include Docker and SSH, which Google's sandboxes do not.
- macOS and Windows. Useful if you build iOS or Mac apps or test on Windows: Namespace runs macOS on Apple Silicon and Windows machines.
- CI runners and build caches. Useful if you want faster GitHub Actions: Namespace is a drop-in runner with Docker, Bazel and Turborepo caching.
Use Google Agent Runtime when
you build agents with ADK or LangGraph on Google Cloud and want them hosted inside your own project, network rules and regions.
- A managed home for your agent code. Useful if you build agents with ADK or LangGraph: Agent Runtime hosts them and skips billing for idle time between turns.
- Longer sandbox life and memory snapshots. Useful if a sandbox must live for days or branch with its memory: Google keeps it up to 7 days and snapshots memory.
- Inside your Google Cloud network. Useful if agents must stay in a Google Cloud perimeter, in one of 23 locations, with egress routed through your own firewall.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is coding agents that work for hours or days, neither product was built for that: Namespace is a CI and dev platform with a 24 hour cap, and Google runs agents in locked containers. boat gives each agent a full VM with root, Docker, a desktop and public URLs, with no session cap on paid plans.
No clock on the session
A Namespace Devbox is shut down after 4, 5 or 24 hours even while it works, and a Google sandbox is deleted when its TTL ends, 7 days at most. Either way your code has to notice, recreate the machine and resume.
A full VM with root and Docker
Google's sandboxes run as appuser with no sudo or Docker, so the 50-agent fleet does not fit there. Namespace has Docker but no word on its own kernel; boat gives each sandbox its own kernel, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Agents built in, reachable from outside
On both, you install Claude Code or Codex yourself or use a partner or Google harness, and neither gives a public URL. boat ships the agents with a prompt API and serves HTTPS on up to 50 ports.
Use boat when your agents work on Linux for hours or days: a full, faster VM with no session cap, root, Docker, a 60fps desktop, public URLs and coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Namespace and boat vs Google Agent Runtime.
Questions people ask
Is Namespace cheaper than Google Agent Runtime?
In most of the scenarios we priced, yes: one coding agent on workdays comes to $50 a month on Namespace and $73 on Google, and 50 agents in parallel $2,198 versus $3,626. Google is cheaper for sandboxes for your users ($1,030 versus $1,214) and 1,000 short jobs ($2,060 versus $3,237). boat comes to $20, $317, $200 and $2,000 for those four.
Which is faster, Namespace or Google Agent Runtime?
We cannot say: Google's sandboxes have no comparable measurement. In StarSling's run, Namespace did 21.79 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, and boat did 26.69.
Can Namespace or Google Agent Runtime run Docker?
Namespace can: Linux Devboxes include Docker, and Linux compute instances have /dev/kvm. Google's sandboxes run as the unprivileged user appuser with no sudo, and no Docker is documented. boat has root, Docker and /dev/kvm on every machine.
How long can a session run on each?
A Namespace Devbox stops after 4, 5 or 24 hours by plan, even while you work in it. A Google sandbox lives until its TTL ends, up to 7 days for a custom container and 14 for Code Execution. boat has no session cap on paid plans.
Is Google Agent Runtime the same as Vertex AI Agent Engine?
Yes. Google renamed Vertex AI Agent Engine to Agent Runtime in April 2026, as part of Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Its code, shell and browser sandboxes are a separate part called Agent Sandbox.
Which one runs macOS?
Only Namespace, which runs macOS Devboxes and instances on Apple M4 Pro and M5 Max chips. Google's sandboxes and boat run Linux only.
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