Sandboxer vs Beam Sandboxes

Beam Sandboxes are programmable environments on Beam's serverless platform, driven mainly from its Python SDK, with filesystem and (on supported runtimes) memory snapshots and optional GPUs. Sandboxer instead gives each sandbox a full Ubuntu VM with its own kernel, systemd and nested KVM. Choose Beam if you want GPUs or are already on Beam's serverless stack; choose Sandboxer for long-lived full-Linux machines.

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

At a glance

Sandboxer and Beam Sandboxes compared
Capability	Sandboxer	Beam Sandboxes
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd
Docker inside	Preinstalled	Set docker_enabled=True and install Docker in the image; host-port remapping is not supported.
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back	partial Memory snapshots capture process state and filesystem, only on supported runtimes; the stop/resume flow was not documented for sandboxes.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	Snapshots are immutable and a sandbox can be forked from them; restored memory snapshots get their own identity and URLs.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	sb.expose_port() creates preview URLs that are public; add auth in the app for sensitive content.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	default 600 s; no stated maximum keep_warm_seconds=-1 keeps it until terminated; TTL can be reset.
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per second, CPU + RAM $0.0000375/s per physical core and $0.0000064/s per GiB.
GPUs		A sandbox can request a GPU for short-lived tasks via gpu/gpu_count.
Self-host or open source
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

Beam Sandboxes

$0.45/hour

4 vCPU = 2 physical cores x $0.0000375/s + 8 GiB x $0.0000064/s = $0.0001262/s x 3600 (assumes 2 vCPU per physical core, as in Beam's own example)

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

Where Beam Sandboxes is strong

Sandboxes can request a GPU (gpu/gpu_count) in their configuration.
Filesystem and memory snapshots let you restore or fork sandboxes.
Docker and Compose work inside a sandbox with docker_enabled.
Per-second billing with no egress fees; Developer plan at $20/month includes $20 of credits.

Where Sandboxer differs

Beam does not document the isolation technology or root access; Sandboxer sandboxes are full VMs with their own kernel and root.
Beam sandboxes default to a 600 s lifetime and are configured per run; Sandboxer sandboxes persist and stop/resume with memory.
Beam's list price for a 4 vCPU / 8 GiB sandbox works out to about $0.45/h; Sandboxer's default size is $0.036/h.
Beam exposes a Python-native SDK; Sandboxer also offers REST, CLI, MCP and TypeScript/Python SDKs.

Pick Beam Sandboxes if

You need a GPU attached to a sandbox.
Your workload is already on Beam's serverless platform and Python SDK.
You want memory snapshots restored into new sandboxes from Python code.

Pick Sandboxer if

You need a full Ubuntu VM with systemd, Docker preinstalled and nested KVM.
You want stop/resume that brings processes back, with stopped sandboxes costing nothing.
You want coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, etc.) preinstalled and a lower per-hour price.

Sources

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

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