boat by ASCII
Modal alternative for AI agents
Modal sandboxes run under gVisor and end after 24 hours at most. A boat sandbox is a full VM that costs 21x less per hour and ran our build loop 2.9x faster.
boat vs Modal
| boat | Modal | |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Full VM, own kernel | gVisor, VM sandboxes in beta |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB, per hour | $0.036 | $0.76 |
| Left on for a month | $26 | $555 |
| Node.js build & test loop | 27.7 runs/s | 9.6 runs/s |
| Docker inside | Yes | VM sandboxes only |
| Desktop and browser | Yes | No |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No |
| When the sandbox stops | Disk kept, free | No stop state, sessions end at 24 h |
| Sandboxes for your users (battleships.dev) | $209/mo, 1st | $811/mo, 8th |
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 Modal when
you need GPUs, or Python functions that run next to your sandboxes.
Use boat when
your agents need a real machine for hours: Docker, a desktop, a browser and a disk that stays.
Start a sandbox
Install the CLI, then run boat new.
7-day free trial