Vercel Sandbox vs Instabox
Both run each sandbox in a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel. Vercel Sandbox is built for many short runs of code in 19 regions, while Instabox is a new invite-only beta that gives each account 5 free machines of one size, with memory pause, SSH and a desktop.
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.
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. “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 | Instabox: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Vercel Sandbox ranks 244th here as a compromise, with 24-hour sessions, no desktop and no nested virtualization; Instabox has no published price to rank, and boat ranks 3rd. | 244th of 367, with limits $3,351 a month | No published price | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Vercel's docs say sandboxes are not designed to run continuously; Instabox documents no maximum run time but pauses a machine after 30 idle minutes unless you turn that off. | 257th of 366, with limits $3,657 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 22nd and fits short code bursts well, since it bills CPU only while code uses it; Instabox's exec API runs at most 10 minutes per call, 4 at once. | 22nd cheapest of 345 $216 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 15th and can run many sandboxes at once; Instabox allows 5 machines per account, paused and stopped ones included, and boat ranks first. | 15th cheapest of 361 $1,267 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 Vercel Sandbox ranks 3rd for many short parallel rollouts; Instabox's 5-machine cap rules out large runs today. | 3rd cheapest of 360 $15,761 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 | 69th cheapest of 364 $1,508 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 that builds Android apps or VM images needs /dev/kvm: Vercel has no nested virtualization, Instabox does not document it, and boat exposes it. | 107th cheapest of 377 $1,144 a month | No published price | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Vercel restarts every 24 hours and loses running processes; Instabox works as an SSH dev box with mosh and memory pause, and boat ranks 18th with a published price. | 276th of 368, with limits $145 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 Vercel Sandbox has no desktop; Instabox has a Linux desktop on one template with a screenshot and click API, and boat streams a 60fps desktop with a computer-use agent. | 235th of 369, with limits $952 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 | 259th of 367, with limits $486 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 | 277th of 346, with limits $468 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 | 234th of 338, with limits $9,960 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 | 283rd of 360, with limits $554 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 | Can't run it | No published price | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Vercel Sandbox | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with 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 | Up to 8 vCPU / 16 GB on Pro, 32 vCPU / 64 GB on Enterprise | 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 |
| Longest session | 24 hours on Pro and Enterprise, 45 minutes on Hobby; resume starts a new session | No maximum documented; an optional timeout of 1 minute to 24 hours, and idle pause after 30 minutes by default | No cap on paid plans (--no-auto-stop); default TTL 1 hour, changeable |
| Pause and resume | Stop saves the files; memory and running processes are lost | Pause keeps memory and running programs; resume usually takes about a second | Stop keeps the disk; start boots the machine again |
| Saving files | Filesystem snapshot on stop, billed per GB a month and kept 30 days after last use by default | Snapshots saved by hand, up to 10; saving stops a running machine first unless the server allows a live save | Disk saved every minute while running and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Desktop and computer use | None; headless Linux only | Linux desktop with a browser on one template, screenshot and click API, shareable view or control links; you bring the model | 60fps desktop with Chromium, computer-use and browser-control APIs, embeddable stream |
| Nested virtualization | No | Not documented | Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs |
| Docker inside | Yes, with sudo | Docker and Docker Compose run inside | Yes, with root and systemd |
| Custom images | Your own OCI images from a Dockerfile, via Vercel Container Registry | One of four templates, or your own snapshot | Named snapshots (templates), shareable by code; no Dockerfile builds |
| Coding agents | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and pi preinstalled; you start them as commands | Templates and saved agent sign-ins in snapshots; you run the agent yourself | Seven agents preinstalled, with an API to prompt, steer and stream events |
| Public port URLs | Up to 15 ports, no built-in auth; no raw TCP or public IP | HTTPS on up to 16 ports, open to anyone with the URL; offline while the machine is paused | HTTPS on up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv6 or IPv4 |
| SSH | No SSH; you use the SDK or the sandbox CLI | SSH through a gateway with short-lived certificates, paste-anywhere SSH tokens and mosh | SSH into every sandbox |
| Keeping API keys out of the sandbox | Credentials brokering injects headers for any HTTPS domain you allow | Vault writes your secrets into each machine as environment variables or files | Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when one runs out |
| Regions | 19 regions across the US, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia | Not published | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Vercel Sandbox | Instabox | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | Not published | 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 | No | 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 | No | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | 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 | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | 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 | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Not published | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Not published | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
On the same 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. Instabox has not been measured, 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 either.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. 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 | Vercel Sandbox, 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 | $57 · Pro | No published price | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $236 · Pro · 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 | $2,884 · Pro | 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 | $828 · Pro | 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 | $3,152 · Pro | No published price | $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 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.
Instabox: Instabox is free during the beta, with 5 machines per user, and has no published price yet, so no bill can be compared.
Instabox: boat charges a flat price per size, per second, only while the machine runs; a stopped sandbox costs nothing. 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; the sandbox resumes from its snapshot, but running processes start over. Instabox allows 5 machines per account, and paused and stopped ones count, so the 50-agent, user-sandbox and 1,000-job scenarios do not fit it today. Every Instabox machine is 4 vCPU / 8 GiB with 20 GB storage, and an exec call runs at most 10 minutes, 4 at once. boat does not fit 1,000 short jobs at once either: even the $2,000 plan caps starts per hour and per day.
| Scenario | Vercel Sandbox | Instabox | 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 code at once, want images from your Dockerfile, or need to run close to users outside Europe.
- Many sandboxes at once. Useful for large fleets or user sandboxes: Pro allows up to 10,000 sandboxes at once, while Instabox allows 5 machines per account.
- Regions all over the world. Useful if your users are spread out: Vercel Sandbox runs in 19 regions, from Virginia to Tokyo and Sydney.
- 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 Instabox when
you want to try a few free 4 vCPU / 8 GiB agent machines during its beta, with memory pause, SSH and mosh.
- Free during the beta. Useful for trying things out: during the beta, each account can run 5 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GiB for free.
- Pause with memory. A paused machine keeps its memory and running programs and usually resumes in about a second.
- SSH gateway with mosh. Useful if you live in a terminal: mosh keeps a session alive through sleep and network changes, and SSH tokens paste anywhere.
Where boat fits
Look at boat if your agents work for hours on one machine and need more than a headless box or a 5-machine beta. boat runs full VMs with no session cap on paid plans, saves the disk every minute, and did about twice as many CPU benchmark runs as Vercel Sandbox.
Emulators and VMs inside
Vercel Sandbox has no nested virtualization and Instabox does not document it, so an agent cannot run an Android emulator or a VM there. boat exposes /dev/kvm in every sandbox.
Private URLs for what agents serve
Agents serve half-built apps and admin panels. Vercel's port URLs have no built-in auth and Instabox's are open to anyone with the link, so you add your own login in front of each one; boat's carry a token by default.
Drive the agents inside from outside
On both, the coding agent is something you start as a command yourself, so you write and maintain the code that prompts it, steers it and reads its output. boat gives you one API for that across seven agents.
Use boat when your agents work for hours on one machine: builds, tests, Docker, emulators and a desktop with a browser, with private port URLs and an API to drive the agents inside from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Vercel Sandbox and boat vs Instabox.
Questions people ask
Is Vercel Sandbox cheaper than Instabox?
It can't be compared yet. Instabox is free during its beta, with 5 machines per user, and publishes no price, so there is no bill to set against Vercel's. On Vercel, one workday coding agent costs $57 a month in our scenario.
Which is faster, Vercel Sandbox or Instabox?
Only Vercel Sandbox has been measured: 12.96 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, against 26.69 for boat. Instabox's CPU speed has not been benchmarked. Instabox says you are in a new machine's shell in under a second, which has not been measured here.
Can Vercel Sandbox and Instabox run Docker?
Yes. Vercel runs Docker with sudo, and Instabox runs Docker and Docker Compose. For Android emulators or VMs inside, Vercel has no nested virtualization and Instabox does not document it; boat exposes /dev/kvm.
Can either one run 24/7?
Vercel Sandbox cannot as one session: Pro sessions stop after 24 hours and running processes start over. Instabox documents no maximum run time, but it pauses a machine after 30 idle minutes by default, which you can turn off.
Do they have a desktop for computer use?
Vercel Sandbox has none; it is headless. Instabox has a Linux desktop with a browser on one template, with a screenshot and click API, and you bring the model. boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and a computer-use agent.
Can anyone sign up for Instabox?
Not yet. Instabox launched on 2026-10-14 as an invite-only beta, with sign-in through GitHub or Google. Vercel Sandbox has a free Hobby plan with 45-minute sessions, plus paid Pro and Enterprise plans.
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