Sandboxer vs PandaStack

PandaStack runs agent sandboxes as Firecracker microVMs with pause, snapshot and memory-state forking, and the platform is open source under Apache-2.0 and self-hostable. Sandboxer differs by being hosted-only, with a full Ubuntu VM, nested KVM and preinstalled coding agents. Pick PandaStack to self-host or fork live VMs; pick Sandboxer for a managed full VM.

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

At a glance

Sandboxer and PandaStack compared
Capability	Sandboxer	PandaStack
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	Firecracker microVM Site describes kernel-isolated Firecracker microVMs.
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	Idle VMs are snapshotted and stopped, waking on first request; pause and fork keep memory state. Resume specifics not documented in pages read.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	Fork a running VM from the same memory state; same-host fork listed at about 400 ms.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	1 h Free; up to 7 days Pro; up to 30 days Team Idle TTL limits per plan; apps and databases are exempt on Free.
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	per second: active vCPU and working-set RAM Hibernated sandboxes incur no vCPU or RAM charges.
GPUs
Self-host or open source		Open source under Apache-2.0 and self-hostable per the site; deployment targets not verified.
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

PandaStack

$0.35/hour

4 active vCPU × $0.054/vCPU-h + 8 GiB × $0.0162/GiB-h (working-set RAM; storage $0.15/GiB-month extra)

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

Where PandaStack is strong

Open source (Apache-2.0) and self-hostable.
Fork a live VM from shared copy-on-write memory in about 400 ms.
Plans from free to $99 a month where the base fee converts 1:1 to usage credit.
Same platform also provides app hosting, managed Postgres and templates built from a Dockerfile.

Where Sandboxer differs

PandaStack is open source and self-hostable; Sandboxer is hosted only.
PandaStack bills active vCPU and working-set RAM, so idle or low-use VMs cost less; Sandboxer bills the machine size per second while running.
Free PandaStack sandboxes last 1 hour; Pro and Team allow up to 7 and 30 days, whereas Sandboxer paid plans allow no time limit.
Root, Docker inside sandboxes and nested virtualization are not documented on PandaStack; Sandboxer provides all three.

Pick PandaStack if

You want to self-host or audit the sandbox stack.
You need to fork a running VM including memory state.
You want a free tier plus apps and Postgres on the same platform.

Pick Sandboxer if

You need a full Ubuntu 24.04 VM with root, systemd, Docker and nested KVM.
You want sandboxes that can run with no time limit on a paid plan.
You want coding agents preinstalled and any port as an HTTPS URL.

Sources

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

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