Sandboxer vs exe.dev

exe.dev gives you a pool of vCPU and memory that your root-access VMs share, with HTTPS and SSH to each. Sandboxer meters each sandbox per second and adds memory-preserving stop/resume and bundled coding agents. Pick exe.dev for many small persistent VMs on a flat plan or for non-US regions; pick Sandboxer for agent-driven, pausable full-VM sandboxes.

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

At a glance

Sandboxer and exe.dev compared
Capability	Sandboxer	exe.dev
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	VM (own VMM process per VM) Each VM runs as its own VMM process with strong isolation; hypervisor not named.
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd	SSH in as root with apt and systemd.
Docker inside	Preinstalled	FAQ: Docker runs because each instance is a VM; use the exeuntu image.
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	partial A copy-vm step clones a VM's disk and config; memory/process state not described.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	partial Proxy forwards ports 3000-9999 over HTTPS; private by default; only one port can be public at a time.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	monthly plan for a shared vCPU/RAM pool plus metered overage Work plan extra capacity $0.105 per 2 vCPU / 4 GiB unit-hour.
GPUs
Self-host or open source
Regions	US East (Virginia) and EU Central (Finland)	9 regions (PDX closed to new accounts, LAX, NYC, DAL, FRA, TYO, SYD, SGP, LON)

= not documented publicly.

Price for one 4 vCPU, 8 GB machine

Sandboxer

$0.036/hour

Flat per-second rate for the default size

exe.dev

$0.21/hour

Work plan extra capacity: 2 units (2 vCPU / 4 GiB each) x $0.105 = $0.21 per hour for 4 vCPU / 8 GiB; base plan fee extra

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

Where exe.dev is strong

Resources are a shared pool, so many small VMs do not each need their own sizing.
Nine regions across the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.
VMs are persistent, reachable with SSH as root and with HTTPS URLs by default.
Docker works with no special setup.

Where Sandboxer differs

exe.dev bills a monthly pool (from about $15 for personal plans) while Sandboxer bills each sandbox per second.
Only one forwarded port can be public at a time on exe.dev; Sandboxer serves any port as an HTTPS URL, private with a token or public.
exe.dev docs do not describe memory-preserving pause or nested KVM.
Sandboxer ships coding agents preinstalled and a prompt API; exe.dev has its own web agent, Shelley.

Pick exe.dev if

You want a flat monthly pool shared by many persistent VMs.
You need a region outside the US, such as Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore or London.
You want a team plan (Work, from $75 a month) with pooled capacity for many VMs.

Pick Sandboxer if

You need a full Ubuntu 24.04 VM with root, systemd, Docker and nested KVM, with agents like Claude Code and Codex preinstalled.
You want stop to save memory and disk and resume to bring processes back, with stopped sandboxes costing nothing.
You want a REST API, CLI, TypeScript and Python SDKs, and an MCP server on per-second billing.

Sources

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

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