boat by ASCII
Daytona alternative for AI agents
Daytona runs sandboxes as containers by default. boat runs each one as a full VM, for 9x less per hour, and ran our build loop 1.5x faster.
boat vs Daytona
| boat | Daytona | |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Full VM, own kernel | Container by default, VM class optional |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB, per hour | $0.036 | $0.33 |
| Left on for a month | $26 | $242 |
| Node.js build & test loop | 27.7 runs/s | 18.6 runs/s |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop and browser | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | VM class only |
| When the sandbox stops | Disk kept, free | Disk billed above 5 GiB until archived |
| Software factory, 100 sandboxes (battleships.dev) | $634/mo, 1st | $4,111/mo, 6th |
Prices are public list prices, re-checked 2026-09-28 to 2026-09-30 on battleships.dev. The boat team builds Battleships and holds boat to the same rules as every other provider. Compare every provider on battleships.dev
Which one should you use?
Use Daytona when
you need GPUs or Windows sandboxes.
Use boat when
you want a full VM for every sandbox by default, and stopped sandboxes that cost nothing.
Start a sandbox
Install the CLI, then run boat new.
7-day free trial