Namespace vs Instabox
Namespace is a build and dev platform with CI runners, caches and Devboxes on Linux, macOS and Windows, where a Devbox stops after 4 to 24 hours. Instabox, which launched today as an invite-only beta, gives each agent a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, in one size, 5 machines per account, free for now.
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
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
- Machines per account
- 5, in any state: paused and stopped ones count
- 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. “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 | Instabox: 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 copies a set-up machine often: Namespace has no fork, Instabox forks only a stopped machine, and boat forks a running sandbox. | 39th of 367, with limits $3,495 a month | No published price | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that never stops is a compromise on Namespace, which shuts a Devbox down after at most 24 hours; Instabox documents no maximum run time but pauses after 30 idle minutes unless you turn that off. | 303rd of 366, with limits $6,645 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 | 247th of 345, with limits $250 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, so it cannot give a sandbox to each of many users yet; Namespace fits as a compromise and boat ranks 1st. | 284th of 361, with limits $2,068 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 | 356th of 360, with limits $9,012 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 once, and Namespace fits as a compromise. | 282nd of 364, with limits $1,043 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 CI is Namespace's main product, with runners and build caches; Instabox does not document /dev/kvm, which Android and VM image builds need, and boat exposes it. | 80th cheapest of 377 $765 a month | No published price | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both work as a cloud dev box: a Namespace Devbox stops when idle and is shut down after at most 24 hours, and Instabox adds mosh and a pause that keeps memory. | 126th of 368, with limits $168 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 Namespace's screenshot and click API works on macOS Devboxes only, Instabox has a Linux desktop on one template where you bring the model, and boat streams a 60fps Linux desktop. | 67th of 369, with limits $982 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 | 285th of 367, with limits $789 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 | 259th of 346, with limits $332 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 | 226th of 338, with limits $9,012 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 | 242nd of 360, with limits $339 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 Only Namespace fits: it runs macOS on Apple Silicon, while Instabox and boat run Linux only. | 6th cheapest of 36 $1,205 a month | No published price | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Namespace | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Linux Devboxes run from a container image on Namespace's own hardware; the docs do not say if each has its own kernel | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel and root | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine sizes | Several sizes; a 4 vCPU / 8 GB Devbox uses one Devbox Minute a minute and bigger sizes use more | 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 |
| CPU speed (Node.js build-and-test, 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 21.79 runs/s | Not measured | 26.69 runs/s |
| Docker | Docker in Linux Devboxes | Docker and Docker Compose run inside | Docker and Compose run inside, with root and systemd |
| Nested virtualization | /dev/kvm on Linux compute instances, not on macOS or Windows | Not documented | /dev/kvm on every machine, for Android emulators and VMs |
| How long a session can run | Devboxes stop after 4, 5 or 24 hours by plan, even while you work; 24 at most | No maximum run time documented; an optional timeout of 1 minute to 24 hours pauses or deletes the machine | No session cap on paid plans |
| Idle stop and pause | Devboxes stop after an idle timeout and start again when you connect; instances can suspend with RAM kept | Pause keeps memory and running programs and usually resumes in about a second; new machines pause after 30 idle minutes | Machines run until you stop them; stop keeps the disk and start boots again |
| Fork | No fork | Fork copies a stopped machine only | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Files after a stop | A stopped Devbox keeps its storage, billed at $0.20 per GB-month used | Snapshots saved by hand, up to 10; saving stops a running machine first unless the server allows a live save | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Reaching the machine | HTTPS URLs that need a Namespace login, TCP through a running CLI port-forward | 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 |
| Desktop and computer use | Screenshot and click API on macOS Devboxes only; VNC and RDP for compute instances | Linux desktop with a browser on one template, screenshot and click API, shareable view or control links | 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer use and browser control |
| Coding agents | Hosts Claude Managed Agents, Cursor and Devin sessions run by those partners; MCP server for your own agent | 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 keys out of the machine | Egress rules inject a header from Namespace Vault, resolved outside the workload | Vault writes your secrets into each machine as environment variables or files | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; real keys never enter the sandbox |
| Operating systems | Linux, macOS on Apple Silicon, and Windows on Team plans and up | Linux only | Linux only; Wine for Windows apps |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Namespace | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | 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 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | Yes | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Not published | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Not published | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Not published | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | Yes | No | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | 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
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. Instabox has no comparable measurement, so this page makes no speed claim for it. Instabox says a new machine's shell is ready 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. Namespace measured on: Linux compute instance (unit-minutes, PAYG/overage $0.0015). Instabox 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 | 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 | $50 · Devbox (pay as you go) | No published price | $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 | 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 | $2,198 · Devbox (pay as you go) | 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 | $1,214 · Devbox (pay as you go) | 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 | $3,237 · Devbox (pay as you go) | No published price | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Namespace: Devboxes are billed in Devbox Minutes at $0.004 each, pay as you go on every plan, and stored files cost $0.20 per GB-month used. The minutes in the Team and Business plans cover runners and instances, not Devboxes.
Instabox: Instabox is free during the beta, with 5 machines per account, and publishes no price yet, so no bill can be compared with Namespace's.
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
On Namespace the limit that bites is time: a Devbox is shut down after 4, 5 or 24 hours by plan, so the agent that never stops restarts at least once a day. Instabox allows 5 machines per account, paused and stopped ones included, all 4 vCPU / 8 GiB, so the 50-agent and user-sandbox scenarios do not fit it today, and none of the scenarios can be priced because it publishes no rate. boat has no session cap on paid plans, but its start limits are lower than a burst of 1,000 short jobs needs.
| Scenario | Namespace | Instabox | 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 macOS or Windows machines, faster GitHub Actions runners with build caches, or Devboxes on published terms that stop when idle.
- macOS and Windows. Useful if your agents 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, Turborepo and Nix caching.
- Published terms and room to grow. Useful if you need a known rate and more than five machines: Namespace publishes its prices, plans and sizes today.
Use Instabox when
you want to try a few free 4 vCPU / 8 GiB microVMs during its invite-only beta, with memory pause and mosh.
- A microVM with its own kernel. Useful if you want each agent on a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, root and Docker, which Instabox documents.
- Pause with memory. Useful if work should pick up where it left off: a paused machine keeps memory and programs and usually resumes in about a second.
- Free while in beta. Useful for trying things out: during the invite-only beta each account gets 5 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GiB for free.
Where boat fits
If you are choosing a machine for coding agents, boat gives each one a full Linux VM with no session cap on paid plans, /dev/kvm, a 60fps desktop and agents you drive from outside. It forks running work, keeps port URLs private by default, runs more than five machines in several sizes, and publishes its prices and EU regions today.
Work that keeps running
Namespace shuts a Devbox down after 4, 5 or 24 hours even mid-task, so a long agent restarts at least daily. Instabox pauses after 30 idle minutes by default, and its port URLs go offline while paused.
Fork without stopping
Namespace has no fork, and Instabox forks only a stopped machine, so the agent's running programs end first. On boat the original keeps working while the copy starts from its disk.
A Linux desktop with the agent built in
Namespace's computer-use API rejects Linux Devboxes, so you install a desktop and VNC yourself. Instabox has a Linux desktop on one template, but you bring and run the model. boat streams 60fps with a computer-use agent included.
Use boat when your agents work on Linux for hours or days and need to fork running work, serve private URLs, use /dev/kvm or run more than five at once. Compare it one to one: boat vs Namespace and boat vs Instabox.
Questions people ask
Is Namespace 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 Namespace's. In our scenarios one coding agent on workdays comes to $50 a month on Namespace and $20 on boat.
Which is faster, Namespace or Instabox?
Only Namespace has been measured: 21.79 runs per second on a Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, against 26.69 for boat. Instabox says a new machine's shell is ready in under a second, but its speed has not been measured.
Can Namespace and Instabox run Docker?
Yes. Namespace runs Docker in Linux Devboxes, and Instabox runs Docker and Docker Compose inside each machine. Namespace offers /dev/kvm on Linux compute instances; Instabox does not document nested virtualization, and boat has /dev/kvm on every machine.
How long can a machine run on each?
A Namespace Devbox is shut down after 4 hours on Developer, 5 on Team and 24 on Business, even while you work. Instabox documents no maximum run time, but new machines pause after 30 idle minutes unless you change that. boat has no session cap on paid plans.
Do Namespace or Instabox run macOS?
Namespace does, on Apple Silicon, and it runs Windows on Team plans and up. Instabox runs Linux only, and so does boat, which has Wine for Windows apps.
Can I use Instabox today?
Only with an invite: it launched on 2026-10-14 as an invite-only beta, with sign-in through GitHub or Google. Each account gets 5 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GiB, and regions and later terms are not published.
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