Sandboxer vs WarpBuild

WarpBuild provides ephemeral GitHub Actions runners (Linux x64/Arm, Windows, macOS M4) billed per minute, with Docker builders and an option to run in your own AWS, GCP or Azure account. Sandboxer is a sandbox service, not CI. Pick WarpBuild to speed up Actions; pick Sandboxer for persistent agent and dev VMs.

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

At a glance

Sandboxer and WarpBuild compared
Capability	Sandboxer	WarpBuild
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	ephemeral VM Allocated on demand and destroyed after the workflow.
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd
Docker inside	Preinstalled
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)		partial Linux x64 via a dynamic label; Arm and macOS unsupported.
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back	Not offered: CI machines are ephemeral and exist only for the length of a job.
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	Not offered: CI machines are ephemeral and exist only for the length of a job.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	Not offered for CI runners.
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	per minute by runner size Linux x64 $0.004/min (2 vCPU) up to $0.064 (32 vCPU).
GPUs
Self-host or open source		partial BYOC in your AWS, GCP or Azure account at $0.002/min; control plane is SaaS.
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

WarpBuild

$0.48/hour

Linux x86-64 4 vCPU / 16 GB (not 8 GB) × $0.008/min × 60

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

Where WarpBuild is strong

Published per-minute prices for each size, Linux x64/Arm, Windows and macOS M4 Pro.
BYOC option for running on your own cloud account.
Nested virtualization on Linux x64 runners.
Docker builders and snapshots add-ons.

Where Sandboxer differs

WarpBuild VMs live only for the workflow run; Sandboxer sandboxes persist and can resume with processes running.
WarpBuild bills per minute; Sandboxer bills per second and stopped sandboxes cost nothing.
WarpBuild offers BYOC and macOS; Sandboxer is not self-hostable and has no macOS.

Pick WarpBuild if

Your CI is GitHub Actions and you want lower cost or BYOC.
You need macOS or Windows runners.

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. WarpBuild is a trademark of its owner. Sandboxer is an independent product and is not affiliated with WarpBuild.

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