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Head to head · Sandbox code · October 2026 research run

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Modal Sandboxes

Modal Sandboxes scores 75.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter's 73.1 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do sandbox code.

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code InterpreterAmazon Web Services · HTTP API BB73.1/100#89 of 841 Modal SandboxesModal · SDK + MCP BB75.5/100#45 of 841

Which one, for what

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter BB

Good for A team already on AWS that wants agent code to run under IAM, inside a VPC and beside S3 data, for sessions up to eight hours.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 67
  • Security & auth, 87 against 76

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No pause, resume or snapshot. Session files are removed when the session ends, and persistence needs a customer-owned S3 Files or EFS mount inside a VPC

Modal Sandboxes BB

Good for GPU work inside a sandbox, or agents already running on Modal.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 95 against 85
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 93 against 65

Watch for

No REST API, and the JavaScript and Go SDKs are beta

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmazon Bedrock AgentCore Code InterpreterModal SandboxesEdge
Reliability16%208595Modal Sandboxes +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28179Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.27567Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +8
Security & auth14%17.58776Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +11
Payments & pricing10%12.53040Modal Sandboxes +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86593Modal Sandboxes +28
Transparency & trust7%8.87072Modal Sandboxes +2
Negative events≤1500
Total73.1 · BB75.5 · BB

Facts side by side

FactAmazon Bedrock AgentCore Code InterpreterModal Sandboxes
KindHTTP APISDK + MCP
VendorAmazon Web ServicesModal
Hosted endpointhttps://bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com/code-interpreters/{id}/tools/invokeno (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the AWS Service Terms. The AgentCore SDKs for Python and TypeScript and the AgentCore MCP server are Apache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-072026-09-28
Terms last updated2026-10-012026-05-01
Privacy policy last updated2026-05-182023-05-17
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity776 stars, 335k npm/wk514 stars, 941k npm/wk, 10.1M PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.3/5 (8)

Verdicts

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter

Each session runs in its own microVM with 2 vCPU, 8 GB and a 10 GB disk for up to eight hours, and IAM can scope access to one interpreter. Sessions cannot be paused or resumed, and an AWS account with IAM set-up is needed before a first call.

Modal Sandboxes

GPU sandboxes at the same per-second rates as the rest of Modal. No REST API, and the JavaScript and Go SDKs are beta.

Before you call either

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter

  1. Start a session with StartCodeInterpreterSession, then pass its id in the x-amzn-code-interpreter-session-id header on every InvokeCodeInterpreter call
  2. Set sessionTimeoutSeconds when starting. The default is 900 seconds and the maximum is eight hours, and the session ends itself at the timeout
  3. Stop sessions when done. Billing runs per second while code is busy, and a session left open counts against the 1,000 concurrent-session quota
  4. Use startCommandExecution, getTask and stopTask for work longer than the 15-minute synchronous request limit
  5. Retry ThrottlingException (429) and InternalServerException (500) with exponential backoff, and treat ServiceQuotaExceededException, returned as HTTP 402, as a quota to raise

Modal Sandboxes

  1. Pass timeout= when you create a sandbox. The default lifetime is 5 minutes
  2. Set block_network=True or a cidr_allowlist for untrusted code
  3. Give a sandbox a name so a retried create raises AlreadyExistsError instead of starting a second one
  4. Snapshot the filesystem before the 24-hour limit and start a fresh sandbox from it
  5. Catch ResourceExhaustedError from Sandbox.create() on SDK 1.6.0 and later

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter or Modal Sandboxes?

Modal Sandboxes scores 75.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter's 73.1 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

Can an agent call Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter and Modal Sandboxes without installing anything?

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter has a hosted endpoint at https://bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com/code-interpreters/{id}/tools/invoke. No hosted endpoint is listed for Modal Sandboxes.

Other comparisons with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter or Modal Sandboxes

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