# Daytona vs Freestyle

> Daytona scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Freestyle's 58.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Freestyle leads on agent ergonomics. Both do sandbox code. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Daytona scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Freestyle's 58.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Freestyle leads on agent ergonomics. Both do sandbox code.

- Daytona: grade B, 64.3/100, rank #320 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/daytona.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/daytona.json
- Freestyle: grade C, 58.5/100, rank #520 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/freestyle.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/freestyle.json

## Which one, for what

### Daytona (B)

Good for: Agents that need a choice of machine, including Windows desktops and GPUs, and operators who want least-privilege keys.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 60 against 43
- Security & auth, 63 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 45
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 71
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 41

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: The container class shares the host kernel. Only the VM classes get their own

### Freestyle (C)

Good for: Suited to long-running agent work that needs a full Linux VM, memory-preserving pause, snapshots to branch from and private networking.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 55

Watch for: No terms of service or service agreement found on the site, and the privacy policy covers the website only


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Daytona | Freestyle | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 43 | Daytona +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 86 | Daytona +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 69 | Freestyle +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 53 | Daytona +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 45 | Daytona +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 71 | Daytona +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 41 | Daytona +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.3 · B** | **58.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Daytona | Freestyle |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Daytona | Freestyle Cloud Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.daytona.io/api` | `https://api.freestyle.sh/v5` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs and API clients), AGPL-3.0 (CLI) | Proprietary service with no published terms of service found. The `freestyle` SDK and CLI package on npm is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-08-22 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-22 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 6 stars, 706k npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk | 72k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Daytona.** API keys with per-action scopes, so an agent can create sandboxes without being able to delete them. The container class shares the host kernel. Only the VM classes get their own.

**Freestyle.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 file describes 88 operations with a stable error code on every failure, and per-VM identity tokens keep the team API key away from end users. No terms of service, product privacy policy, request rate limit or incident history was found, and the only SDK is TypeScript.

## Before you call either

### Daytona

1. Pick a Linux VM class for untrusted code or when memory must survive a pause. Container sandboxes stop and archive instead
2. Set autoStopInterval yourself. The 15-minute idle default can stop a sandbox while the agent is still thinking
3. Give the agent a key without `delete:sandboxes` if it shouldn't destroy work
4. Read `Retry-After-{throttler}` on a 429 before retrying sandbox creation
5. Check the organisation's tier before relying on outbound calls from inside the sandbox

### Freestyle

1. Send a `firewall` object on every `POST /v5/vms`. It is required, and a VM with no rules has no outbound internet
2. Ask the owner to run `freestyle login` in a browser once, then mint a key with `freestyle tokens create --output json`
3. Do not retry an exec that answers 409 `VM_NON_RESPONSIVE`. The command may already have run
4. Keep `exec-await` under its 300,000 ms cap and use a PTY session or `x-freestyle-background-after-secs` for longer work
5. Call the `/v5` paths. The unversioned duplicates in the OpenAPI file are marked deprecated

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Daytona or Freestyle?

Daytona scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Freestyle's 58.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Freestyle leads on agent ergonomics.

### Do Daytona and Freestyle need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Daytona and Freestyle without installing anything?

Yes. Daytona has a hosted endpoint at https://app.daytona.io/api and Freestyle at https://api.freestyle.sh/v5.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Daytona or Freestyle

- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-daytona.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-daytona.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-daytona.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Daytona vs Deno Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-deno-sandbox.md)
- [Daytona vs E2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-e2b.md)
- [Daytona vs Microsoft Execution Containers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-microsoft-execution-containers.md)
- [Daytona vs Modal Sandboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-modal-sandboxes.md)
- [Daytona vs Morph Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-morph-cloud.md)
- [Daytona vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-runloop.md)
- [Daytona vs Sprites](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-sprites.md)
- [Daytona vs Together Code Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-together-code-sandbox.md)
- [Daytona vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Deno Sandbox vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-freestyle.md)
- [E2B vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Freestyle vs Microsoft Execution Containers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-microsoft-execution-containers.md)
- [Freestyle vs Modal Sandboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-modal-sandboxes.md)
- [Freestyle vs Morph Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-morph-cloud.md)
- [Freestyle vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-runloop.md)
- [Freestyle vs Sprites](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-sprites.md)
- [Freestyle vs Together Code Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-together-code-sandbox.md)
- [Freestyle vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Agent 37 Cloud vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent37-vs-daytona.md)
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