Sandboxer vs Islo

Islo is Incredibuild's agent sandbox, with dedicated microVM machines, a gateway that injects credentials and enforces network policy, snapshots, and job automation. Sandboxer differs by offering full Ubuntu VMs with root, Docker and nested KVM, and resume that restores running processes. Pick Islo for policy-controlled agent fleets; pick Sandboxer for full-VM environments.

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

At a glance

Sandboxer and Islo compared
Capability	Sandboxer	Islo
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	dedicated microVM Technology not named in docs.
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	Pause snapshots state and releases compute; docs read do not say whether memory and processes are restored.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	partial No fork command; a snapshot captures disk state and can be restored into multiple new sandboxes. Memory and processes are not mentioned.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	islo share exposes an HTTP port at https://<id>.share.islo.dev; anyone with the URL can reach it until it expires (24 h default) or is revoked. HTTP only.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	configurable pause_after caps active runtime (docs example: 8 h), pause_after_idle pauses on inactivity, delete_after deletes.
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per vCPU-hour, GB-hour and GB of disk, only while running No seat licences or idle fees; hibernated state not billed per pricing page.
GPUs
Self-host or open source		partial Pricing page mentions BYOC for enterprise; details are not public.
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

Islo

$0.60/hour

4 vCPU × $0.07/vCPU-h + 8 GB × $0.04/GB-h (disk $0.0007/GB-h extra)

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

Where Islo is strong

Gateways enforce per-sandbox network policy and inject credentials so agents never hold secrets.
Auto-pause and delete policies (pause_after_idle, pause_after, delete_after) are first-class settings.
Automations: factory lines, scheduled jobs, triggers and incoming webhooks to run agent work.
Pay-as-you-go pricing with no seat licences or idle fees, plus BYOC for enterprises.

Where Sandboxer differs

Islo's pause is documented as snapshotting state and releasing compute, without a stated guarantee that running processes return; Sandboxer resume brings processes back.
Islo prices CPU and memory separately per hour with no plan tiers; Sandboxer uses per-size per-second rates and plans that convert to machine time.
Islo shares ports over HTTP with time-limited share links; Sandboxer gives any port an HTTPS URL, private with a token or public.
Root, Docker and nested virtualization are not covered in Islo's docs; Sandboxer provides all three.

Pick Islo if

You need credential injection and egress policy enforced outside the VM.
You want job and webhook automation around agent runs.
You want an enterprise BYOC option from an established vendor (Incredibuild).

Pick Sandboxer if

You need a full Ubuntu VM with systemd, Docker and nested KVM.
You want stop/resume that keeps RAM and running processes.
You want coding agents preinstalled and a prompt API with streamed events.

Sources

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

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