Namespace vs Upstash Box
Namespace is a CI and dev platform whose Devboxes are remote machines that shut down after 4 to 24 hours by plan, on Linux, macOS or Windows. Upstash Box gives each AI agent a light Docker container in the US that pauses when idle, bills only the CPU it uses and wakes on the next request.
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
Upstash Box
Upstash Box is a cloud computer for AI agents from Upstash, the company known for serverless Redis, Vector and QStash.
Each box is a Docker container with its own filesystem, shell, git and an optional coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode, which you drive from TypeScript or Python SDKs. A box pauses when it sits idle, keeps its files, and you pay for the CPU it actually uses. Upstash built it to run its own Context7 service and opened it to everyone in March 2026.
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 | Upstash Box: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month | 39th of 367, with limits $3,495 a month | 61st of 367, with limits $464 a month | 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 both: a Namespace Devbox shuts down after at most 24 hours, and an Upstash box is a container with no Docker inside; boat has no session cap on paid plans. | 303rd of 366, with limits $6,645 a month | 103rd of 366, with limits $475 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 Upstash Box fits short code runs well because an idle box costs no CPU and RAM is not billed, while Namespace bills Devbox minutes for every minute a box runs. | 247th of 345, with limits $250 a month | 10th cheapest of 345 $119 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 Upstash Box and boat both fit closely: Upstash wakes a user's paused box on the next request, and boat gives each user a full VM with Docker and hosting, while Namespace is a compromise here. | 284th of 361, with limits $2,068 a month | 2nd cheapest of 361 $222 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 | 352nd of 360, with limits $8,068 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 | 52nd cheapest of 364 $1,011 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; Upstash boxes cannot build containers inside, and boat runs CI jobs on full VMs with Docker and /dev/kvm. | 80th cheapest of 377 $765 a month | 120th cheapest of 377 $1,520 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A flat-price keep-alive Upstash box stays on all month, while a Namespace Devbox is shut down after at most 24 hours; boat keeps a full VM up as long as you want. | 126th of 368, with limits $168 a month | 10th cheapest of 368 $20 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 Both are a compromise for Linux computer use: Namespace's screenshot and click API works on macOS Devboxes only, and Upstash's browser is headless with no desktop; boat streams a 60fps Linux desktop. | 67th of 369, with limits $982 a month | 73rd of 369, with limits $76 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 Upstash ships a managed headless Chromium with AI page actions, Namespace has no managed browser, and boat gives the agent a desktop browser it can see and click. | 285th of 367, with limits $789 a month | 49th of 367, with limits $38 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 | 37th cheapest of 346 $400 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 | 200th of 338, with limits $8,000 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 | 225th of 360, with limits $259 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 Upstash Box nor boat has macOS. | 6th cheapest of 36 $1,205 a month | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Namespace | Upstash Box | 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 | One Docker container per box on AWS | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| CPU speed (Node.js build-and-test, 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 21.79 runs/s | Not measured | 26.69 runs/s |
| Docker inside | Yes, Docker in Linux Devboxes | Not documented; the box is itself a Docker container | Yes, Docker, root and systemd on every machine |
| Nested virtualization | /dev/kvm on Linux compute instances, not on macOS or Windows | No VM support 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, raisable to 24 at most | No cap documented; idle boxes pause and resume later, keep-alive boxes stay on all month | No session cap on paid plans |
| Idle behavior | Devboxes stop after an idle timeout (15 minutes to 8 hours) and start again when you connect | Idle boxes cost no CPU, then pause; a request to a public URL wakes a paused box | Machines run until you stop them; a stopped sandbox is started by API |
| Files after a stop | A stopped Devbox keeps its storage, billed at $0.20 per GB-month used | A paused box keeps its files; storage bills at $0.10 per GB-month | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Fork | No fork; compute instances can suspend and resume with RAM kept | Snapshot a running box and start many new boxes from it | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Custom images | Any container image you choose, plus Devbox blueprints | Custom images listed as coming soon; reuse setups through snapshots | Named snapshots (templates), shareable by code; no Dockerfile builds |
| Desktop and browser | Screenshot and click API on macOS Devboxes only; VNC and RDP for compute instances | Managed headless Chromium with AI page actions and CDP; no desktop | 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer use and browser control |
| Reaching the sandbox | HTTPS URLs that need a Namespace login, TCP through a CLI port-forward; no public IP | HTTPS URL per port, public unless you add a token or basic auth; SSH through a gateway; no raw TCP | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| Outbound rules | Block, advisory or allow by domain, per Devbox blueprint, runner or instance | Allow all, deny all, or allow and deny by domain and CIDR, changeable on a running box | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist |
| Coding agents | Partners such as Claude Managed Agents, Cursor and Devin run sessions on it; an MCP server lets your agent create Devboxes | Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode built in, with run and stream APIs, webhooks and scheduled prompts | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Operating systems and regions | Linux, macOS on Apple Silicon, and Windows on Team plans and up; several regions | Linux only, in AWS us-east-1 | Linux only, with Wine for Windows apps; EU only (Germany, Finland, France) |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Namespace | Upstash Box | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No | 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 | Yes | 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 | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | No | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | 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 | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | No | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | 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. Upstash Box has no result in that benchmark, so there is no comparable measurement for it.
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). Upstash Box 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 | Upstash Box, 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) | $21 · 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 | $21 · 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) | $900 · 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) | $306 · 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) | $1,822 · 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, and a 4 vCPU / 8 GB Devbox uses one a minute. The minutes in the Team ($100) and Business ($250) plans cover runners and instances, not Devboxes, and stored files cost $0.20 per GB-month.
Upstash Box: A standard box is billed for the CPU it actually uses, at $0.10, $0.20 or $0.40 per active CPU hour for Small, Medium and Large, plus $0.10 per GB-month of storage, and RAM is free. A keep-alive box costs a flat $8, $16 or $32 a month, busy or not.
Upstash Box: 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
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 does not fit without daily restarts. On Upstash Box it is Docker: the 50 agents in parallel need Docker inside, which a box does not offer, and disks stop at 5, 10 or 20 GB. Neither publishes an egress price. boat's limit is start rate, so the 1,000 short jobs at once get queued on boat while both others start them.
| Scenario | Namespace | Upstash Box | 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 from your own image with Docker inside.
- macOS and Windows. Useful if your agents build iOS or Mac apps or test on Windows: Namespace runs both, and Upstash Box is Linux only.
- 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.
- Docker and any container image. Useful if your Devbox must start from your own image and run Docker inside, which Upstash Box does not document.
Use Upstash Box when
your agents mostly wait, should wake on an incoming request, need a strict outbound allowlist, or must run in the US.
- Idle costs no CPU. Good for agents that wait a lot: Upstash bills only CPU actually used, RAM is free, and a request wakes a paused box.
- No daily shutdown. Useful for an agent that stays on: a keep-alive box runs all month at a flat price, with no 24-hour stop.
- Agents built into the box. Useful if you want Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode inside each box, driven by SDK, webhooks and scheduled prompts.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is AI agents on Linux, boat gives each one a full VM that neither of these does: its own kernel, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm, with no session cap on paid plans. Look at boat when Namespace's daily shutdown or Upstash's container limits get in the way of the work.
A full machine with no clock
A Namespace Devbox is shut down after 4 to 24 hours, so a long agent dies mid-task and your code must restart it. An Upstash box stays on, but has no Docker or /dev/kvm. boat has both, with no session cap.
A desktop the agent can see
Namespace's screenshot and click API rejects Linux Devboxes, and Upstash gives only a headless browser. A Linux computer-use agent needs you to install a desktop and VNC, or pay macOS rates. boat streams a 60fps desktop.
Faster CPU and open hosting
boat ran the Node.js build-and-test benchmark about a fifth faster than Namespace. Namespace URLs need a Namespace login and Upstash has no raw TCP, while boat serves HTTPS on 50 ports plus raw TCP.
Use boat when your agents work on Linux for hours or days and need a real machine: Docker, /dev/kvm, a 60fps desktop, a faster CPU and no session cap. Compare it one to one: boat vs Namespace and boat vs Upstash Box.
Questions people ask
Is Namespace cheaper than Upstash Box?
Not in the scenarios we priced. One coding agent on workdays comes to $50 a month on Namespace against $21 on Upstash Box, and 1,000 short jobs at once come to $3,237 against $1,822. boat comes to $20 for the workday agent.
Which is faster, Namespace or Upstash Box?
Namespace did 21.79 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in StarSling's benchmark, and Upstash Box has no result there, so they cannot be compared. boat did 26.69 on the same test.
Can Namespace or Upstash Box run Docker?
Namespace's Linux Devboxes include Docker. Upstash's docs do not offer Docker inside a box, which is itself a Docker container. boat sandboxes are full VMs where Docker, docker compose and systemd work as on any Linux server.
Can an agent run for days on Namespace or Upstash Box?
On Upstash Box, yes: an idle box pauses and resumes with its files, and a keep-alive box stays on all month. A Namespace Devbox is shut down after 4, 5 or 24 hours by plan, even while you work. boat has no session cap on paid plans.
Do Namespace or Upstash Box have a desktop for computer use?
Namespace's screenshot and click API works on macOS Devboxes only, and Upstash Box gives a headless Chromium with no desktop. boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps with computer-use tools preinstalled.
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.
Try boat
Install the CLI, then run boat new.
7-day free trial