Sandboxer vs Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines)

Dedalus Machines are persistent Linux VMs, each with its own kernel and root access, that sleep when idle and keep the root filesystem. Unlike Sandboxer, a sleeping Machine loses RAM and running processes, so they must be restarted on wake. Pick Dedalus for a cheap persistent box with an Enterprise BYOC option; pick Sandboxer when processes must survive a stop.

Checked against Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines)'s public docs on October 24, 2026. Sources are linked in the table and listed below.

At a glance

Sandboxer and Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines) compared
Capability	Sandboxer	Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines)
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	Full Linux VM with its own guest kernel; VM-level isolation
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd	Root access in a VM with its own kernel.
Docker inside	Preinstalled	Not stated on the official pages checked.
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)		Not stated on the official pages checked.
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back	Sleep keeps the root filesystem; memory, CPU state and running processes are lost and must be restarted.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	Not stated on the official pages checked.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	Not stated on the official pages checked.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	not stated Autosleep after 5 idle minutes by default, configurable or 'never'. No maximum lifetime documented.
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per second, vCPU + memory while running; storage billed separately Idle (sleeping) time is free beyond storage.
GPUs		Not stated on the official pages checked.
Self-host or open source		partial Enterprise plan lists bring-your-own-cloud; the CLI is on GitHub.
Regions	US East (Virginia) and EU Central (Finland)	Not stated on the official pages checked.

= not documented publicly.

Price for one 4 vCPU, 8 GB machine

Sandboxer

$0.036/hour

Flat per-second rate for the default size

Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines)

$0.30/hour

4 vCPU × $0.04536/h + 8 GiB × $0.01458/h (storage beyond included allowance excluded; Pro allows up to 16 vCPU / 64 GiB)

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

Where Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines) is strong

Compute is billed per second only while running, and sleeping machines cost only for storage.
Hobby ($0) and Pro ($20/month) plans with usage credits; Pro allows up to 16 vCPU and 64 GiB per machine.
Enterprise offers bring-your-own-cloud, SSO and an uptime SLA.
Managed through HTTP API, CLI, and Python, TypeScript and Go SDKs.

Where Sandboxer differs

Dedalus sleep drops RAM and running processes, whereas Sandboxer stop saves memory so processes resume.
Docker, nested virtualization, fork and per-port public URLs are not documented for Machines; Sandboxer documents Docker preinstalled, nested KVM and per-port HTTPS URLs.
Dedalus lists machine caps (5 on Hobby, 20 on Pro); Sandboxer plans set concurrency at 100 to 2000.

Pick Dedalus Labs (Dedalus Machines) if

You want a persistent machine with a cheap per-vCPU rate and a BYOC path on Enterprise.
Your agent's state lives on disk and a restart of processes after wake is acceptable.
You need sizes up to 16 vCPU / 64 GiB on a $20 plan.

Pick Sandboxer if

Each Sandboxer sandbox is a full Ubuntu 24.04 VM with its own kernel, root/sudo, systemd and Docker preinstalled.
Stopping saves memory and disk and resume brings running processes back; stopped sandboxes cost nothing.
Coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others) are preinstalled and driven through a prompt API, with an MCP server, REST API, CLI and TypeScript and Python SDKs.

Sources

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

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