Vercel Sandbox vs Claude Managed Agents
Vercel Sandbox rents you a Firecracker microVM that your own code drives with an SDK, built for short runs of untrusted code in 19 regions. Claude Managed Agents is Anthropic's hosted agent: you send Claude a task, and it works in a small container that Anthropic runs for you.
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.
Claude Managed Agents
Claude Managed Agents is Anthropic's ready-made agent harness: Claude runs as an autonomous agent in a cloud sandbox that Anthropic manages, and you talk to it through an events API.
This is an agent platform, not a sandbox you rent. You define an agent (model, prompt, tools, MCP servers, skills) and an environment, then start sessions, send messages as events and stream back what Claude does; the harness handles tool calls, prompt caching and compaction. Each session gets its own Ubuntu container, or runs its tools on a worker you host yourself. It is built for teams that want Claude doing long tasks without building their own agent loop or sandbox.
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 | Claude Managed Agents: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Neither fits cleanly: Vercel has no desktop and stops each session at 24 hours, and Managed Agents has a small container with Docker in limited availability; boat ranks 3rd with a full VM and a desktop. | 244th of 367, with limits $3,351 a month | 106th of 367, with limits $964 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Managed Agents sessions sleep for free between messages but keep files only 30 days, and Vercel says its sandboxes are not designed to run nonstop; boat ranks 5th with no session cap. | 257th of 366, with limits $3,657 a month | 219th of 366, with limits $2,511 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 22nd and is a clean fit for short code bursts, since it bills CPU only while code uses it; Managed Agents is a compromise because it only runs inside a Claude session. | 22nd cheapest of 345 $216 a month | 163rd of 345, with limits $756 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 Sandbox ranks 15th and gives your users public URLs to open what runs inside; Managed Agents has no inbound ports, and boat ranks 1st with HTTPS URLs on up to 50 ports. | 15th cheapest of 361 $1,267 a month | 231st of 361, with limits $823 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 Sandbox ranks 3rd for many short parallel rollouts thanks to high concurrency and fast starts; Managed Agents publishes no concurrency cap and no machine size. | 3rd cheapest of 360 $15,761 a month | 252nd of 360, with limits $3,978 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 | 244th of 364, with limits $320 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 Vercel runs Docker with sudo but has no /dev/kvm, Managed Agents does not document a full Docker, and boat ranks 4th with Docker, systemd and nested virtualization. | 107th cheapest of 377 $1,144 a month | 227th of 377, with limits $96 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box needs SSH and a long session: Vercel restarts every 24 hours, Managed Agents has no SSH, and boat ranks 18th with a disk that lasts. | 276th of 368, with limits $145 a month | 224th of 368, with limits $48 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 browser or desktop, Managed Agents has headless Chromium with Playwright but no desktop, and boat ranks 6th with a 60fps desktop and a computer-use API. | 235th of 369, with limits $952 a month | 127th of 369, with limits $288 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 | 126th of 367, with limits $288 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 | 127th of 346, with limits $390 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 | 155th of 338, with limits $4,798 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 | 179th of 360, with limits $160 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 | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A sandbox you rent: a microVM your code drives with the JavaScript or Python SDK or the CLI | A hosted Claude agent: Anthropic's harness runs Claude in a sandbox and you send it events | A sandbox platform: each agent gets a full Linux VM, with coding agents built in and an API to drive them |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel | Isolated Linux container per session | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Machine size | Up to 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Pro, 32 vCPU / 64 GB on Enterprise | Up to 8 GB memory and 10 GB disk; vCPU count not published; not configurable | Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above |
| Longest session | 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise, 45 minutes on Hobby; resume starts a new session | No session cap published; an idle session sleeps and resumes on the next message | No cap on paid plans (--no-auto-stop); default TTL 1 hour, changeable |
| What persists | Filesystem snapshot on stop, billed per GB a month, kept 30 days after last use by default | Sandbox checkpointed when a session goes idle; state kept only 30 days after the sandbox is created | The whole disk, saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm | Docker with sudo; no nested virtualization | Docker listed as limited availability; root, systemd and /dev/kvm not documented | Root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Wake on next message | No wake on request; a stopped sandbox resumes from its last snapshot | Yes; idle time is not billed and the next message resumes the session | No; a stopped sandbox is started by API |
| Browser and desktop | None; headless Linux only | Headless Chromium with Playwright; no desktop or computer-use tool | 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer-use and browser-control APIs |
| Agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and pi preinstalled; you start them as commands | Anthropic's harness with Claude models only, with events, steering, memory stores and webhooks | Claude Code, Codex and five more preinstalled, with an API to prompt, steer and stream events |
| Inbound access | Public URLs for up to 15 ports, no built-in auth; no raw TCP or SSH | No inbound ports or SSH; reached only through the sessions and events API | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; SSH |
| Outbound rules | Allow-all, deny-all or a domain and CIDR allowlist, changeable while running; static IPs on Enterprise | Unrestricted, or limited to listed hosts plus optional package registries and MCP servers | Open internet, no provider-side allowlist; firewall inside the VM |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Credentials brokering injects headers for any HTTPS domain you allow | Vault secrets sit in the sandbox as placeholders and are swapped in at egress, per host | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out |
| Regions | 19 regions across the US, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia | US workspace geo only; inference can be global or US | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
| Self-hosting | No | Self-hosted sandboxes run tool calls on your own workers | No |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Vercel Sandbox | Claude Managed Agents | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | 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 | No | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | Yes | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | 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 | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | No | Yes | 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 | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | No | Yes |
Performance
Vercel Sandbox and boat were measured on the same hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB: Vercel did 12.96 runs per second and boat did 26.69, about twice as many. Claude Managed Agents has no comparable measurement, and Anthropic does not publish how many vCPUs its sandbox gets. On Managed Agents, much of a session's time is spent waiting on the model rather than on the CPU.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Claude Managed Agents 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 | Claude Managed Agents, 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 | $13 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $236 · Pro · with limits | $53 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $2,884 · Pro | $634 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $828 · Pro | $360 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · 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 | $796 · Claude API (pay-as-you-go, usage tiers) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Vercel Sandbox: Vercel charges for CPU only while your code uses it, but for memory for the whole time the sandbox runs, plus a small fee per sandbox created and a monthly fee per GB of snapshots. The $20 Pro credit is shared with your other Vercel usage.
Claude Managed Agents: Managed Agents bills model tokens at API rates plus a flat session runtime fee, metered only while the session is running, including time spent waiting on the model. The table shows runtime only; tokens come on top and usually cost more.
Claude Managed Agents: boat charges a flat price per size, per second, only while the machine runs, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing. Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole 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 when it resumes. Managed Agents counts as a clean fit in none of the scenarios: its machine size is not published, Docker inside is not confirmed for the 50-agent fleet, and it does not confirm running 300 or 1,000 sandboxes at once. boat fits every scenario but the 1,000 short jobs, where even the $2,000 plan allows 600 starts an hour and queues bursts above 90 a minute.
| Scenario | Vercel Sandbox | Claude Managed Agents | 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 are building your own agent or app and want a microVM to drive with code, for many short runs of untrusted code, close to users around the world.
- You control the machine. Teams building their own agent or app get a microVM to drive with an SDK, with public URLs on up to 15 ports.
- Many short jobs at once. Useful for code interpreters and RL rollouts: it bills CPU only while code runs and fits 1,000 short jobs at once.
- Regions all over the world. Useful if your users are far from the US: Vercel Sandbox runs in 19 regions, from Virginia to Tokyo and Sydney.
Use Claude Managed Agents when
you want Claude itself to do long, mostly text and code tasks with no harness to build, idle time that costs nothing, and the option to run tools on your own workers.
- No agent loop to build. Teams that want Claude doing long tasks get the harness, caching, compaction, memory and webhooks ready to use.
- Idle sessions sleep for free. Agents that wait a long time between messages pay runtime only while working, and resume on the next message.
- Tools on your own workers. Teams with strict rules can run every tool call on their own infrastructure while Anthropic keeps the orchestration.
Where boat fits
Look at boat if your agents work for hours on one machine and need more than a short-lived microVM or a small container. boat gives each agent a full VM that keeps its disk, a desktop and browser, ports you can open, and Claude Code, Codex or other agents you drive from outside.
A whole machine with Docker and /dev/kvm
Vercel has no nested virtualization, and a Managed Agents container has up to 8 GB of memory with Docker only in limited availability. Android emulators, VMs and big Docker builds stall on both; boat has root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Agents that work all day and keep their disk
Vercel cuts each session at 24 hours and restarts every process. Managed Agents keeps sandbox state only 30 days after creation, so setup runs again. boat has no session cap on paid plans and saves the disk every minute.
See and open what the agent builds
Vercel is headless, and Managed Agents has no inbound ports or desktop, so you copy code elsewhere to try it or build a desktop yourself. boat streams a 60fps desktop and gives HTTPS URLs on up to 50 ports.
Use boat when your agents need a real machine for hours: Docker, emulators, a desktop and browser, ports you can open, a disk that lasts, and Claude Code, Codex or other agents driven from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Vercel Sandbox and boat vs Claude Managed Agents.
Questions people ask
Is Claude Managed Agents cheaper than Vercel Sandbox?
For runtime alone, yes in all five of our scenarios: one agent that never stops costs $53 on Managed Agents against $236 on Vercel, and 50 parallel agents cost $634 against $2,884. But Managed Agents bills model tokens on top, which usually cost more than the runtime, and it is a clean fit in none of the scenarios.
Which is faster?
Only Vercel Sandbox has a CPU measurement: 12.96 runs per second on the Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Anthropic does not publish the vCPU count of a Managed Agents sandbox, and it was not benchmarked. boat did 26.69 runs per second on the same test.
Can Vercel Sandbox or Claude Managed Agents run Docker?
Vercel Sandbox runs Docker with sudo, but has no nested virtualization. Managed Agents lists Docker as limited availability and does not document root or systemd. boat has root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can either run an agent 24/7?
Not as one long session on Vercel: sessions stop at 24 hours, and its docs say sandboxes are not designed to run continuously. Managed Agents sessions sleep when idle and wake on the next message, but sandbox state is kept only 30 days after the sandbox is created. boat has no session cap on paid plans.
Can I run Claude Code on them?
Vercel Sandbox has Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and pi preinstalled, and you start them as commands. Managed Agents runs Anthropic's own harness with Claude models, not Claude Code. boat has Claude Code, Codex and five more, with an API to prompt and steer them.
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.
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