# 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. Category…

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

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 Interpreter: grade BB, 73.1/100, rank #89 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcore-code-interpreter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcore-code-interpreter.json
- Modal Sandboxes: grade BB, 75.5/100, rank #45 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/modal-sandboxes.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/modal-sandboxes.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter | Modal Sandboxes | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 95 | Modal Sandboxes +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 79 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 67 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 76 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Modal Sandboxes +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 93 | Modal Sandboxes +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 72 | Modal Sandboxes +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73.1 · BB** | **75.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter | Modal Sandboxes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Modal |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com/code-interpreters/{id}/tools/invoke` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the AWS Service Terms. The AgentCore SDKs for Python and TypeScript and the AgentCore MCP server are Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-05-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2023-05-17 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 776 stars, 335k npm/wk | 514 stars, 941k npm/wk, 10.1M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.3/5 (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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-modal-sandboxes.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-modal-sandboxes.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agentcore-code-interpreter", "b": "modal-sandboxes"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agentcore-code-interpreter modal-sandboxes`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcore-code-interpreter.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/modal-sandboxes.json

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