Sandboxer vs Alibaba Cloud AgentBay

AgentBay is Alibaba Cloud's managed sandbox service, with Linux and Windows cloud computers, cloud browsers, code sandboxes and Android cloud phones driven by Python, TypeScript, Go and Java SDKs. Sandboxer gives each sandbox a full Ubuntu 24.04 microVM with root, Docker, nested KVM and any port as an HTTPS URL. Pick AgentBay for Windows, Android or browser automation inside Alibaba Cloud; pick Sandboxer for long-lived Linux dev machines that stop and resume with processes intact.

Checked against Alibaba Cloud AgentBay's public docs on October 24, 2026. Sources are linked in the table and listed below.

At a glance

Sandboxer and Alibaba Cloud AgentBay compared
Capability	Sandboxer	Alibaba Cloud AgentBay
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	isolated session (technology not stated) Docs say each session is temporary, isolated and fully independent from other sessions; they do not name the virtualization technology.
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd	Custom images are built from Dockerfiles, but docs do not state root access inside a session.
Docker inside	Preinstalled
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back	partial Beta pause/resume keeps all session state, but is whitelist-only (request access by email).
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	partial Session Link gives an https/wss URL for ports 30100-30199 by default (others need whitelisting); Pro/Ultra plans only.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	default 30 min max runtime; configurable, or manual release with no auto-release LifecyclePolicy defaults: 5 min idle timeout, 30 min absolute max runtime from creation; manual release disables all auto-release so the session ends only on delete().
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per second, CPU + memory $0.027 per core-hour and $0.0113 per GB-hour, billed per second, plus storage overage and premium bandwidth; idle running sessions are billed. Plans: Basic free, Pro $149/mo, Ultra $225/mo.
GPUs
Self-host or open source		The SDKs are Apache-2.0 on GitHub; the sandbox service itself is hosted by Alibaba Cloud. No self-host option found.
Regions	US East (Virginia) and EU Central (Finland)	cn-hangzhou, ap-southeast-1 (Singapore), us-east-1 (Virginia) Regions listed in the SDK configuration guide.

= not documented publicly.

Price for one 4 vCPU, 8 GB machine

Sandboxer

$0.036/hour

Flat per-second rate for the default size

Alibaba Cloud AgentBay

$0.20/hour

4 vCPU × $0.027/core-h + 8 GB × $0.0113/GB-h = $0.108 + $0.0904 (pay-as-you-go, excluding storage overage and bandwidth)

List prices from each provider's pricing page, before free credits, plans and storage. This compares price only.

Where Alibaba Cloud AgentBay is strong

Offers Linux and Windows cloud computers, cloud browsers, code sandboxes and Android cloud phones under one API.
Has SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go and Java.
Bills CPU and memory per second, with a free Basic plan allowing 10 concurrent sessions.
Runs in three regions across China, Singapore and the US east coast.

Where Sandboxer differs

AgentBay includes Windows and Android environments; Sandboxer runs Ubuntu 24.04 VMs only.
AgentBay's pause/resume is a whitelist-only beta; Sandboxer's stop keeps memory and disk for every sandbox.
AgentBay exposes ports 30100-30199 by default on Pro/Ultra plans; Sandboxer exposes any port as an HTTPS URL on every plan.
AgentBay runs in three regions; Sandboxer runs in us-east and eu-central.

Pick Alibaba Cloud AgentBay if

Your agent needs Windows desktops or Android phones.
You already run on Alibaba Cloud or need sessions in mainland China.
You want browser automation with built-in fingerprinting, proxies and CAPTCHA handling.

Pick Sandboxer if

You need root, Docker and nested KVM in a full Ubuntu VM.
You want to stop a sandbox and resume it later with processes still running, and pay nothing while it's stopped.
You want coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex preinstalled and driven by a prompt API.

Sources

Products change. If something here is out of date, email hello@sandboxer.com and we'll fix it. Alibaba Cloud AgentBay is a trademark of its owner. Sandboxer is an independent product and is not affiliated with Alibaba Cloud AgentBay.

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