Vercel Sandbox vs Agent 37
Vercel Sandbox gives each run its own Firecracker microVM, built for short bursts of code in 19 regions, and stops every session after 24 hours. Agent 37 keeps one always-on gVisor sandbox per user in the US that can sleep, keep its memory and wake on the next message.
The companies and products
Vercel Sandbox
Vercel is a cloud platform for web apps and agents, and Vercel Sandbox is its product for running untrusted or agent-written code in isolated Linux microVMs.
Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, started from a Vercel image, your own OCI image, or a saved snapshot. You drive it with the JavaScript or Python SDK or the sandbox CLI: run commands, move files, open ports, and set network rules. It is aimed at code interpreters, app builders, test runs and agent tools, and Vercel's docs say it is not meant to run nonstop.
Agent 37
Agent 37 hosts AI agents, one isolated, always-on sandbox per user, behind one API.
You create an instance from a template (Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Grok or your own Docker image) and talk to it through a chat API, files, exec, SSH and HTTPS URLs. The default instance is a container enforced by gVisor; a VM type gives a full Linux machine with its own kernel for Docker, Kubernetes and Android emulators. It is built for companies that give each of their customers an agent.
- Where it runs
- Dedicated servers in the United States
- Instance types
- Default (shared), Performance (dedicated cores), VM
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type I, Type II in progress
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. “22nd cheapest of 345” means 21 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 | Vercel Sandbox: price rank | Agent 37: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Vercel has no desktop and stops at 24 hours; Agent 37 needs its VM type for Docker; boat gives every agent Docker, systemd and a desktop. | 244th of 367, with limits $3,351 a month | 2nd cheapest of 367 $551 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Agent 37 is built for always-on assistants that sleep and keep their memory; Vercel stops each session at 24 hours, and boat runs with no cap on paid plans. | 257th of 366, with limits $3,657 a month | Cheapest of 366 $279 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 suit short code runs: Vercel bills CPU only while code uses it, Agent 37 has small cheap default sandboxes, and boat's start limits make large bursts a poor fit. | 22nd cheapest of 345 $216 a month | Cheapest of 345 $22 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 Vercel fits sandboxes for your users at scale; Agent 37 stops at 200 instances, counting sleeping ones, and boat ranks first on cost. | 15th cheapest of 361 $1,267 a month | 30th of 361, with limits $79 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 Vercel ranks third here thanks to high concurrency and fast starts; Agent 37's self-serve cap of 200 instances makes big rollouts a compromise. | 3rd cheapest of 360 $15,761 a month | 6th of 360, with limits $363 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 | 69th cheapest of 364 $1,508 a month | 90th of 364, with limits $58 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 All three fit CI runners; Agent 37 ranks 2nd and boat 4th on cost, while Vercel ranks 107th. | 107th cheapest of 377 $1,144 a month | 2nd cheapest of 377 $84 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Agent 37 keeps a machine around the clock and is cheap to keep idle; Vercel restarts every 24 hours and loses running processes. | 276th of 368, with limits $145 a month | 3rd cheapest of 368 $12 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 Vercel Sandbox has no desktop; Agent 37 adds a noVNC desktop through a template build, and boat streams a 60fps desktop out of the box. | 235th of 369, with limits $952 a month | Cheapest of 369 $53 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 | 259th of 367, with limits $486 a month | 48th of 367, with limits $29 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 | 277th of 346, with limits $468 a month | Cheapest of 346 $32 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 | 234th of 338, with limits $9,960 a month | 36th of 338, with limits $648 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 | 283rd of 360, with limits $554 a month | Cheapest of 360 $43 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 | Vercel Sandbox | Agent 37 | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel | gVisor by default; full VM as an opt-in instance type | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Longest session | 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise, 45 minutes on Hobby; resume starts a new session | No time limit; runs until you stop it or it auto-sleeps | No cap on paid plans; default time limit 1 hour, changeable |
| Sleep and memory | Filesystem snapshot on stop; memory and processes start fresh | Opt-in auto-sleep on idle; memory checkpointed, processes resume when the restore works | Disk saved every minute and on stop; a resume reboots the machine |
| Docker inside | Yes, with sudo | Only on the VM type, at 2.5x the default compute rate | Yes, in every sandbox, with root and systemd |
| Nested virtualization | No | /dev/kvm on the VM type, with a ready Android template | /dev/kvm in every sandbox, Android emulator works |
| Desktop and browser | None; headless Linux only | noVNC desktop through a template build or the Ubuntu VM template | 60fps desktop and Chromium in every sandbox, computer-use and browser-control APIs |
| Custom images | Your own OCI images from a Dockerfile, via Vercel Container Registry | Your own linux/amd64 Docker image as a template | Named snapshots as shareable templates; no Dockerfile builds |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and pi preinstalled; you start them as commands | Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, Grok, OpenCode, Pi, with a chat API per instance | Claude Code, Codex, pi, OpenCode, Prime Agent, Kimi Code, Mistral Vibe, with an API to prompt, steer and stream events |
| Keys kept outside the sandbox | Credentials brokering injects headers for any HTTPS domain you allow | Managed LLM, search and Composio through a per-instance token; your own keys go in as env vars | Proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register; switch a credential to another account when one runs out |
| Egress rules | Allow-all, deny-all or a domain and CIDR allowlist, changeable while running | No provider-side allowlist | No provider-side allowlist; firewall inside the VM |
| Inbound access | Public URLs for up to 15 ports, no built-in auth; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS URL per port, signed URLs, custom domains; no public IP, SSH through a WebSocket tunnel | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| How many at once | Up to 10,000 concurrent sandboxes on Pro | 1 to 200 instances by lifetime top-ups, counting sleeping and stopped ones; email for more | Concurrency set by plan, up to 2,000 at once |
| Regions | 19 regions across the US, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia | United States | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), EU data residency |
| CPU speed (4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 12.96 runs/s | Not measured | 26.69 runs/s |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Vercel Sandbox | Agent 37 | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | No | Yes | 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 | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | 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 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
On the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, boat did 26.69 runs per second and Vercel Sandbox did 12.96, so boat finished about twice as many runs. Agent 37 has no published result on that benchmark, so there is no comparable measurement. Agent 37 says its default instances share host resources, and sells a Performance type on dedicated cores.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Agent 37 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 | Vercel Sandbox, a month | Agent 37, 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 | $57 · Pro | $6 · Wallet (any top-up) | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $236 · Pro · with limits | $12 · Wallet (any top-up) | $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 | $2,884 · Pro | $329 · Wallet ($100 lifetime top-ups) | $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 | $828 · Pro | $33 · Wallet ($250 lifetime top-ups) · 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 | $3,152 · Pro | $73 · Wallet ($250 lifetime top-ups) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Vercel Sandbox: Vercel charges for CPU only while your code uses it, but charges for memory for the whole time a sandbox runs, idle time included, plus a fee per sandbox created and per GB of snapshots. The $20 Pro credit is shared with your other Vercel usage.
Agent 37: Agent 37 uses a prepaid wallet with no plan fee, metered per minute on the size you pick: $0.80 per vCPU and $0.70 per GB of RAM per month while running, and $0.09 per GB of disk per month even while asleep. Performance compute costs 4x and VM compute 2.5x.
Agent 37: boat charges a flat price per size, per second, only while the machine runs; a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk. Plans start at $20 a month, and all of the fee is usage credit.
Limits in those scenarios
For one agent that never stops, Vercel ends each session at 24 hours and running processes start over, so it does not fit. Agent 37 counts every instance it holds, sleeping and stopped ones too, against a cap of 200 at $250 of top-ups, which is why it does not fit 300 user sandboxes at once or 1,000 jobs at once. Vercel fits that burst, and boat does not: even its $2,000 plan allows 600 starts an hour and queues bursts above 90 starts a minute. Agent 37 is priced on its VM type for 50 agents in parallel, because that scenario needs Docker.
| Scenario | Vercel Sandbox | Agent 37 | 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 Vercel Sandbox when
you run many short bursts of untrusted code at once, or need sandboxes close to users in many regions.
- Regions all over the world. Useful if your users are spread out: Vercel Sandbox runs in 19 regions, while Agent 37 runs only in the US.
- Big bursts of short jobs. For thousands of short runs at once, Vercel allows up to 10,000 sandboxes on Pro and bills CPU only while code uses it.
- A firewall you control from outside. A running sandbox can be switched to deny-all, or to a list of allowed domains, without a restart.
Use Agent 37 when
you host one mostly idle assistant per customer in the US that should sleep with its memory kept and wake on the next message.
- Sleeps when idle and keeps its memory. Useful for assistants that sit idle most of the day: an instance sleeps, keeps its memory and wakes on the next message.
- No session cap. An instance runs until you stop it, so a long task is never cut off at 24 hours as it is on Vercel.
- A chat API for each agent. Start Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code and others from a template and talk to each one through a chat API.
Where boat fits
If your agents do real work for hours, such as installs, builds, tests, Docker and checking the app they built, look at boat. Every boat sandbox is a full VM with a desktop, a browser and an API to drive the agents inside from outside, and it runs about twice as fast as Vercel Sandbox on the same CPU test.
A full VM is the default
Vercel Sandbox has no /dev/kvm, so no Android emulators or VMs inside. Agent 37's default gVisor type cannot run Docker, and its VM type costs 2.5 times as much and has no systemd. boat gives every sandbox Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
A desktop and a browser built in
Vercel Sandbox is headless, so an agent cannot open the web app it built to check it. Agent 37 needs a template build for a noVNC desktop. boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer-use APIs in every sandbox.
Host real services
Vercel gives up to 15 port URLs with no built-in auth and no raw TCP or public IP. Agent 37 has no public IP and tunnels SSH through a WebSocket. boat gives token-protected HTTPS on 50 ports, raw TCP and its own IP.
Use boat when your agents work for hours on one machine: Docker, emulators, a desktop with a browser, real hosting, and an API to drive the agents inside from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Vercel Sandbox and boat vs Agent 37.
Questions people ask
Is Agent 37 cheaper than Vercel Sandbox?
Yes, in every scenario we priced. One workday agent costs $6 a month on Agent 37 vs $57 on Vercel, and 50 parallel agents cost $329 vs $2,884. But Agent 37 does not fit 300 user sandboxes or 1,000 jobs at once, because of its 200-instance cap.
Which is faster?
Vercel Sandbox did 12.96 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Agent 37 has no result on that benchmark, so we cannot compare them. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the same test.
Can Vercel Sandbox or Agent 37 run Docker?
Vercel Sandbox runs Docker with sudo in every sandbox. Agent 37 runs Docker only on its VM type, which bills compute at 2.5x; the default gVisor type cannot run a Docker daemon. boat runs Docker in every sandbox.
Can either one run an agent 24/7?
Agent 37 can: an instance runs until you stop it, and it can sleep on idle and wake with its memory. Vercel Sandbox sessions stop after 24 hours, and its docs say sandboxes are not designed to run continuously. boat machines run with no session cap on paid plans.
Does either have a desktop for computer use?
Vercel Sandbox has none; it is headless Linux. Agent 37 offers a noVNC desktop through a template build or its Ubuntu VM template. boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer-use APIs in every sandbox.
Where do they run?
Vercel Sandbox runs in 19 regions around the world, with iad1 in the US as the default. Agent 37 runs on dedicated servers in the United States. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
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