Sandboxer vs ZenRows (Scraping Browser)

ZenRows Scraping Browser is a remote Puppeteer/Playwright endpoint built for scraping protected sites, billed in credits per minute and per GB. Sandboxer is a different category: each sandbox is a full Ubuntu VM with root, Docker and nested KVM, not a browser instance. Pick ZenRows for scraping; pick Sandboxer for general sandboxes.

Checked against ZenRows (Scraping Browser)'s public docs on October 24, 2026. Sources are linked in the table and listed below.

At a glance

Sandboxer and ZenRows (Scraping Browser) compared
Capability	Sandboxer	ZenRows (Scraping Browser)
Isolation	microVM Cloud Hypervisor, its own kernel	browser instance
Full Linux with root	Ubuntu 24.04, sudo, systemd	Not applicable: a remote browser reached over a WebSocket/CDP endpoint; no such feature is documented.
Docker inside	Preinstalled	Not applicable: a remote browser reached over a WebSocket/CDP endpoint; no such feature is documented.
Nested virtualization (/dev/kvm)		Not applicable: a remote browser reached over a WebSocket/CDP endpoint; no such feature is documented.
Pause and resume with memory	Running processes come back
Fork a sandbox	Copy-on-write disk copy that boots fresh	Not applicable: a remote browser reached over a WebSocket/CDP endpoint; no such feature is documented.
HTTPS URL per port	Private with a token, or public	Not applicable: a remote browser reached over a WebSocket/CDP endpoint; no such feature is documented.
Longest session	No limit on paid plans Auto-stop is up to 30 days or off	15 minutes A session closes after 15 minutes
Billing	Per second, flat rate per size Stopped sandboxes are free	credits: 5 credits/min browser time, 25,000 credits/GB bandwidth Free plan 5,000 credits/month; credit-to-dollar rate not on the page
GPUs
Self-host or open source
Regions	US East (Virginia) and EU Central (Finland)

= not documented publicly.

Where ZenRows (Scraping Browser) is strong

Single WebSocket endpoint works with Puppeteer and Playwright.
Fingerprints rotated across a residential network.
Free plan with 5,000 credits a month.
Concurrency and browser availability are handled for you.

Where Sandboxer differs

ZenRows exposes a scraping browser, not a machine with root, Docker or KVM.
Sessions close after 15 minutes; Sandboxer paid plans have no time limit.
Billing is in credits for time and bandwidth, not per second of a sized machine.

Pick ZenRows (Scraping Browser) if

You scrape anti-bot-protected sites and want proxy rotation built in.
You want to connect existing Puppeteer/Playwright code via one URL.
Sessions under 15 minutes are enough.

Pick Sandboxer if

You need a full Ubuntu 24.04 VM with root, systemd, Docker and nested KVM rather than a browser only.
You want stop/resume that brings running processes back, and sandboxes that cost nothing while stopped.
You want coding agents (Claude Code, Codex and others) preinstalled and any port exposed as an HTTPS URL.

Sources

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

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