Runloop vs Replit
Runloop is a sandbox platform: your code starts devboxes where coding agents build, run and test. Replit is an AI app builder: a person describes an app, Replit Agent writes it, and Replit hosts it.
The companies and products
Runloop
Runloop is a US platform of sandboxes, called devboxes, for building, running and testing AI coding agents.
You get Linux devboxes built from Dockerfile-style blueprints, disk snapshots, HTTPS tunnels, agent gateways that hide API keys, and Axons, event streams that drive agents such as Claude Code. Each devbox runs in a micro-VM on Runloop's own bare-metal hypervisor, with a container layer inside. It is built for teams shipping coding agents, plus evaluation and RL fine-tuning work on the Enterprise plan.
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type 2
- Architectures
- x86_64 and arm64 base blueprints
- Own-cloud deploy
- Deploy to VPC on AWS, GCP and Azure (Enterprise)
- Regions
- Not documented or selectable
- Company
- Runloop AI, Inc.
Replit
Replit is an AI app builder and hosting platform: you describe an app in chat, Replit Agent writes it, and Replit publishes it.
You work in a browser workspace where Replit Agent sets up the project, writes the code, tests it and fixes problems, with system packages managed by Nix. When the app is ready you publish it as an Autoscale, Static, Scheduled or Reserved VM deployment, with Postgres and object storage next to it. It is built for people and teams who want a working app, not for programs that need to create many machines by API, so this page compares the parts where the two overlap.
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. “20th cheapest of 367” means 19 of the other 366 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 | Runloop: price rank | Replit: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Runloop fits a software factory because your code starts and drives many devboxes; Replit's outside entry point is an MCP server that drives Replit Agent one app at a time, and boat fits fully with nested virtualization too. | 20th cheapest of 367 $8,152 a month | 181st of 367, with limits $2,000 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB On Replit an always-on assistant is a Reserved VM that bills all month; Runloop can suspend an idle devbox and wake it on a request, but only on Pro. | 32nd cheapest of 366 $10,194 a month | 202nd of 366, with limits $2,033 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 Replit's Autoscale costs less for short runs because it scales to zero, though it is a web host, not a code runner; Runloop fits fully, and boat's start limits queue very large bursts. | 44th cheapest of 345 $525 a month | 228th of 345, with limits $146 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 Runloop is built to give each user a devbox; Replit does not publish how many deployments can run at once, and each one is a published app. | 26th cheapest of 361 $3,301 a month | 233rd of 361, with limits $825 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 Runloop is the strongest of the three for RL rollouts: it starts large waves without published start limits and sells RL fine-tuning on Enterprise. | 4th cheapest of 360 $15,922 a month | 258th of 360, with limits $4,226 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 | 81st cheapest of 364 $2,562 a month | 265th of 364, with limits $685 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 Runloop runs Docker on its Docker-in-Docker blueprints and Replit's Nix-based environments do not document Docker; boat has Docker on every machine and faster CPUs. | 121st cheapest of 377 $1,554 a month | 275th of 377, with limits $425 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A Replit workspace is a good place to code by hand, but there is no Docker or systemd; Runloop has no public IP or raw TCP, and running all month needs an idle policy. | 113th cheapest of 368 $410 a month | 165th of 368, with limits $109 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 Runloop and boat both give agents a desktop and a browser to control, with boat streaming at 60fps; Replit's VNC pane shows a desktop to a person, with no computer-use API. | 39th cheapest of 369 $2,306 a month | 190th of 369, with limits $619 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 | 40th cheapest of 367 $1,153 a month | 229th of 367, with limits $317 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 | 68th cheapest of 346 $781 a month | 234th of 346, with limits $217 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 | 266th of 338, with limits $15,611 a month | 150th of 338, with limits $4,378 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 | 10th cheapest of 360 $770 a month | 208th of 360, with limits $215 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 | Runloop | Replit | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | Devboxes for AI coding agents, created by API from blueprints | AI app builder with browser workspaces and app hosting | Sandboxes you create, stop and fork by API, SDK or CLI |
| Isolation | Micro-VM on a custom bare-metal hypervisor, plus a container layer | Not documented; the security page says strong logical separation between users | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Docker on the Docker-in-Docker blueprints, as root; nested virtualization not documented | System packages come from Nix; the docs do not describe Docker, systemd or /dev/kvm | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| Images and CPU type | Blueprints built from Dockerfiles, disk snapshots, x86_64 and arm64 | Nix packages set up per project; CPU type not documented | Templates from named snapshots, x86_64 only |
| Keeping files | Disk kept through suspend (Pro plan) or disk snapshots you take; shutdown ends the devbox | Workspace files and Agent checkpoints; published apps should not rely on their filesystem | Snapshot every minute and on stop, on every plan; resume with the same disk |
| Long runs | Fixed lifetime 1 hour by default, 48 hours max; an idle policy replaces it | Reserved VM runs continuously at a fixed monthly price per size | No session cap on paid plans, and stopping a sandbox ends the bill |
| Sleep when idle | Suspend after idle, wake on an HTTP request to the tunnel (Pro) | Autoscale starts on the first request and goes idle after 15 minutes, costing nothing while idle | No wake on request; you stop and resume sandboxes yourself |
| Reaching the machine | One HTTPS tunnel per devbox, SSH through a TLS proxy, no public IP | Published apps on HTTPS domains and custom domains; SSH into the workspace on paid plans | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4; SSH |
| Egress rules | Hostname allowlist with wildcards, or block all | No egress allowlist documented | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist |
| Keeping keys out of the sandbox | Agent gateways for any API endpoint with bearer, header or basic auth | Replit manages keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and OpenRouter models; other keys are secrets in the app | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini CLI and DeepAgents, driven through Axons and Broker | Replit Agent, which an MCP client can drive (create, update, ask, publish) | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Desktop and computer use | Desktop and browser an agent can control | VNC pane that streams a native desktop to your browser; no computer-use API | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Databases and storage | No hosted database documented; run your own inside a devbox | Postgres and App Storage built into each app | No hosted databases; run your own inside a sandbox |
| Where it runs | Regions not documented; Deploy to VPC on AWS, GCP or Azure (Enterprise) | Data mainly on Google Cloud in the US; published apps in North America, Europe, Asia, South America or Australia on Core and up | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), EU data residency |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Runloop | Replit | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | No | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | 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 | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent harness API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | Not published | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | Yes | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Yes | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Not published | No | No |
| EU data residency | No | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
On StarSling's Node.js build-and-test benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB (run 36498291449, 2026-09-29), boat ran 26.69 runs a second and Runloop 8.29, about 3.2 times apart. Replit is not in that benchmark, so there is no comparable number for it. The test measures CPU work only, not start time or network speed.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Replit 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 | Runloop, a month | Replit, 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 | $113 · Basic | $122 · Pro $100 (annual) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $429 · Basic | $122 · Pro $100 (annual) · 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 | $5,268 · Basic | $1,330 · Pro $1,000 (annual) · 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 | $1,441 · Basic | $403 · Pro $250 (annual) · with limits | $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 | $3,184 · Basic | $825 · Pro $1,000 (annual) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Runloop: Runloop bills per second for the CPU and memory you allocate while a devbox starts, runs, suspends or resumes, and bills its disk for the devbox's whole life. Basic has no plan fee; Pro adds $250 a month that is not usage credit and unlocks suspend and resume.
Replit: Replit plans (Core $20, Pro from $100) turn into monthly credits for Agent work and hosting, then usage goes on to pay-as-you-go. A Reserved VM has a fixed monthly price per size and bills whether busy or idle; our bills price agents as Reserved VMs and leave out Agent usage.
Replit: Plans start at $20 a month and the whole fee is usage credit, billed per second while a sandbox runs. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Replit is marked as not a fit in every scenario because it is an app platform: one Reserved VM is one published app that runs all month, and Replit does not publish how many deployments can run at once, so 300 sandboxes for your users or 1,000 jobs at once are not confirmed. Runloop fits every scenario, but its fixed lifetime tops out at 48 hours unless an idle policy replaces it, suspend needs Pro, and it publishes no egress price. On boat, the 1,000-job burst is queued above 90 starts a minute and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Runloop | Replit | 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 Runloop when
your code needs to start devboxes for coding agents, with hostname allowlists, arm64, very large bursts of short jobs or a deploy into your own cloud.
- Machines your code starts. Useful if your program needs a devbox per task: Runloop starts them by API from Dockerfile blueprints, with Docker inside on its dnd blueprints.
- Lock down the network. Useful if a sandbox must only reach a fixed list of hosts: Runloop allows listed hostnames, with wildcards, or blocks everything.
- Big bursts and your own cloud. Useful for RL and eval waves: Runloop starts large bursts without published start limits, and Enterprise runs inside your AWS, GCP or Azure.
Use Replit when
you want Replit Agent to build a web app from a description and host it for you, with databases, sleeping when idle and regions outside Europe.
- An app built and hosted for you. Useful if you want a working app from a description: Replit Agent builds, tests and publishes it, with Postgres and storage.
- Hosting that costs nothing when idle. Useful for web apps with uneven traffic: Autoscale wakes on the first request and costs nothing while idle.
- Regions on five continents. Useful if your users are spread out: Replit publishes apps in North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is agents that install, build, test and serve things for hours, look at boat. Like Runloop, your code creates the machines, but each one is a full VM with /dev/kvm, a disk saved every minute and no session cap on paid plans. On the same CPU benchmark boat ran about 3.2 times faster than Runloop; Replit is not in that benchmark.
A full Linux machine
Runloop documents Docker-in-Docker but not /dev/kvm, and Replit's docs do not describe Docker or systemd at all. An Android emulator or a VM will not start on either. boat gives each sandbox its own kernel, root, systemd, Docker and /dev/kvm.
Work kept, no matter the plan
A Runloop devbox is gone once it shuts down, so keeping work means the Pro plan's $250 fee for suspend or snapshot code you write. Replit's published apps should not rely on their filesystem. boat saves the disk every minute and on stop, on every plan.
Any port, any protocol
Runloop reaches a devbox through one HTTPS tunnel and has no public IP, and Replit serves published apps over HTTPS domains. A database or server that speaks raw TCP has no way in. boat gives 50 HTTPS ports, raw TCP and a dedicated IPv6 or IPv4.
Use boat when your agents do real work for hours: full VMs with Docker and /dev/kvm, files kept on every plan, raw TCP, a 60fps desktop, and CPUs about three times faster than Runloop's. Compare it one to one: boat vs Runloop and boat vs Replit.
Questions people ask
Is Runloop cheaper than Replit?
It depends on the job. One coding agent on workdays comes to $113 on Runloop and $122 on Replit, but an agent that never stops comes to $429 on Runloop against $122 on Replit, because a Reserved VM has a flat monthly price. Replit does not fit any of our agent scenarios as is, and boat comes to $20 and $26 for those two.
Which is faster, Runloop or Replit?
We cannot say: Replit is not in the public CPU benchmark we use. Runloop ran 8.29 runs a second on it at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, and boat ran 26.69.
Can Replit or Runloop run Docker?
Runloop runs Docker as root on its Docker-in-Docker blueprints. Replit sets up environments with Nix packages and its docs do not describe running Docker. Every boat sandbox has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can I drive coding agents from my own code on Runloop or Replit?
On Runloop, yes: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others run in devboxes and are driven through Axons and Broker. Replit's MCP server lets an MCP client create, update and publish apps, but it drives Replit Agent only. boat has a prompt, steer and events API for Claude Code, Codex and other agents.
Where do Runloop and Replit run?
Runloop does not document its regions, and on Enterprise it can deploy into your own AWS, GCP or Azure account. Replit hosts data mainly on Google Cloud in the US and publishes apps on five continents on Core and up. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
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. Runloop's trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2, and Replit's docs say it has a SOC 2 Type 2 attestation.
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