Sandboxer vs Amp Orbs

Amp Orbs are remote machines that run Amp's own coding agent per thread, with portals for dev servers, project snapshots and pause/wake that keeps memory and processes. Sandboxer is general sandbox infrastructure: full Ubuntu VMs with several coding agents, a REST API, SDKs and lower per-hour prices. Amp users who want the agent and environment as one product should pick Orbs; teams building on a sandbox API or running other agents fit Sandboxer.

Checked against Amp Orbs' public docs on October 24, 2026. Sources are linked in the table and listed below.

At a glance

Sandboxer and Amp Orbs compared
Capability	Sandboxer	Amp Orbs
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd	Orbs run Debian 12; setup scripts use sudo apt-get and systemctl.
Docker inside	Preinstalled	partial Not installed by default; docs show installing Docker in .agents/setup and running dockerd as an orb service.
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back	Amp-hosted orbs save disk and memory when paused, so processes keep running on wake; idle orbs pause automatically. Self-hosted orbs on Docker do not keep memory.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	partial New threads start from a project snapshot prepared by .agents/setup (reused up to 72 h); forking a running orb is not described.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	partial Portals are authenticated URLs for declared web services, shareable with others; not arbitrary public ports.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	no run limit stated; pauses when idle Idle pause after 5 min of no agent work and 20 min without interaction; these are idle timeouts, not a run limit.
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per minute by orb size Paused orbs cost nothing; orb usage draws on a separate allowance in paid plans.
GPUs
Self-host or open source		Self-hosted orbs via an outbound-only 'amp orb provider' dispatch program, with a Kubernetes Helm chart; free until Oct 29, then free on Hobby/Individual/Teams and billed at standard price for Enterprise.
Regions	US East (Virginia) and EU Central (Finland)

= not documented publicly.

Price for one 4 vCPU, 8 GB machine

Sandboxer

$0.036/hour

Flat per-second rate for the default size

Amp Orbs

$0.33/hour

a1.medium orb (4 CPUs, 8 GB, 60 GB disk) at the $0.33/hour standard price

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

Where Amp Orbs is strong

Pausing an Amp-hosted orb saves memory and disk, so dev servers, terminals and desktop apps are still running when it wakes.
Portals give authenticated, shareable URLs for dev servers, with review comments sent back to the agent.
Project snapshots built from .agents/setup let new threads skip setup for up to 72 hours.
Self-hosted orbs can run on your own infrastructure, including Kubernetes via a Helm chart.

Where Sandboxer differs

Orbs are part of the Amp agent product and run Amp threads; Sandboxer is a sandbox API that runs several coding agents.
Amp lists a 4 CPU / 8 GB orb at $0.33/hour; Sandboxer's 4 vCPU / 8 GB default is $0.036/hour.
Orbs run Debian 12 with Docker installed on demand; Sandboxer runs Ubuntu 24.04 with Docker preinstalled and nested KVM.
Amp offers self-hosted orbs; Sandboxer is not self-hostable.

Pick Amp Orbs if

Your team already uses Amp and wants its agent and environment managed together.
You need orbs running on your own infrastructure.
You want shareable portal links for review built into the agent thread.

Pick Sandboxer if

You want to drive Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or other agents through a REST API, SDKs or MCP.
You want lower per-hour prices for a 4 vCPU / 8 GB machine.
You need Docker preinstalled, nested KVM or SSH and public IPv6 on each sandbox.

Sources

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

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