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Sandboxer vs Bitrise

Bitrise is a CI/CD service built for mobile apps, with hosted macOS (Apple Silicon) and Linux machines billed per minute and capped build times. Sandboxer is not a CI product: it gives you persistent Ubuntu microVMs you can stop and resume. Pick Bitrise for iOS and mobile pipelines; pick Sandboxer for agent and development environments.

Checked against Bitrise's public docs on October 28, 2026. Sources are linked in the table and listed below.

At a glance

Sandboxer and Bitrise compared
CapabilitySandboxerBitrise
IsolationmicroVM
Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel
virtual machine
Linux machines are listed as Ubuntu VMs; macOS machines run on Apple Silicon.
Full Linux with root
Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd
Docker inside
Preinstalled
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)
Pause and resume with memory
Running processes come back
Fork a sandbox
Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh
HTTPS URL per port
Private with a token, or public
Longest sessionNo limit on paid plans
Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off
90 min Hobby, 210 min Starter/Pro, up to 4 h Enterprise
Build timeout per plan.
BillingPer second, flat rate per size
Stopped sandboxes are free
per minute by machine type, with plan credits
Linux 4 vCPU/16 GB $0.0044/min; macOS Medium $0.0072/min.
GPUs
Self-host or open sourcepartial
Up to 4 on-premise runners on Starter, 10 on Pro, unlimited plus AWS runners on Enterprise; the control plane is SaaS.
RegionsUS 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
Bitrise
$0.26/hour
Linux M (4 vCPU / 16 GB, not 8 GB) × $0.0044/min × 60

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

Where Bitrise is strong

  • Hosted Apple Silicon macOS machines from M2 Pro to M4 Pro, which a Linux VM cannot provide.
  • Per-minute rates are published for every machine size, Linux up to 48 vCPU / 192 GB.
  • Offers self-hosted runners and a Build Hub for running GitHub Actions on Bitrise machines.
  • Also offers remote development environments on macOS and Linux.

Where Sandboxer differs

  • Bitrise runs builds that end after a timeout (up to 4 hours on Enterprise); Sandboxer sandboxes can run with no time limit on a paid plan.
  • Bitrise bills build minutes; Sandboxer bills per second and stopped sandboxes cost nothing.
  • Bitrise has macOS machines; Sandboxer has no macOS or Windows VMs.

Pick Bitrise if

  • You build and sign iOS or macOS apps and need Apple Silicon machines.
  • You want a managed mobile CI workflow with a build-step ecosystem.

Pick Sandboxer if

  • Need a long-lived machine you can stop, resume and reach over SSH or an HTTPS URL, not a machine that exists for one job.
  • Want coding agents preinstalled and a prompt API, MCP server, SDKs and CLI for driving them.
  • Need Docker, nested KVM and full root in a VM that can stop with memory saved and resume with processes running.

Sources

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

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