# Daytona vs InstaVM

> Daytona scores 67.7 (B) to InstaVM's 52.1 (D) for code sandboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-instavm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-instavm.md (~4,750 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Daytona scores 67.7 (B) on agent readiness against InstaVM's 52.1 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do code sandboxes.

- Daytona: grade B, 67.7/100, rank #310 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/daytona.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/daytona.json
- InstaVM: grade D, 52.1/100, rank #1000 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/instavm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/instavm.json
- Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/code-sandboxes/index.md
- All 231 sandboxes comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/code-sandboxes/index.md

## 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, 85 against 77
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 66
- Security & auth, 73 against 41
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 35
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

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

### InstaVM (D)

Good for: Hosted microVM sandboxes with browser, desktop, OCI images, clones and public shares.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Daytona loses 4 points for them

Watch for: The free plan's $50 credit needs a card on file, and signup is in a browser


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Daytona +45

- Daytona (80): v0.227.0 of daytona/clients on 29 October 2026 (30). 24 stable releases from v0.204.0 (11 August) to v0.227.0 (29 October), plus v2.0.0 alphas from 24 October (20). Core development went private in June 2026, and the old public repository keeps its open issues with a notice that it gets no further updates. Public changelog and releases, scored on the closed-service scale (10). Current official SDKs in five languages (15). CI workflows for PR checks, end-to-end tests and publishing exist in the clients repository, but their pass state couldn't be read (5). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 80.
- InstaVM (35): Closed service lines. The latest dated change found is Python SDK 0.26.1 on 15 July 2026, 114 days before the check, and the site changelog's only entry is 11 July (10). No SDK release in the 90 days to 6 November (0). A public changelog, support email and Discord, with no reply times seen (8 of 15). Official Python and JavaScript SDKs, last released in July and May 2026 (12 of 15). Package health of the SDK repositories was not read (5 of 10). Total 35.

### Security & auth: Daytona +32

- Daytona (73): API keys with per-action scopes (`write:sandboxes` separate from `delete:sandboxes`, plus snapshot, volume, audit, secret and billing scopes), an expiry date and immediate revocation, and manager keys that issue scoped child keys at runtime. The docs say any valid key in the organisation can reach a running sandbox whatever its scopes, so 27 of 30 (27). Container sandboxes get their own namespaces and resource limits on a shared kernel, while Linux VM and Windows classes get their own kernel (6). Tier 1 and 2 organisations get restricted network access that can't be changed per sandbox, and full internet with per-sandbox allow lists starts at Tier 3 (5). We found nothing on keeping credentials out of the sandbox or on running untrusted code (5). Audit logs behind their own key scope, log streaming and webhooks (15). An organisation-wide security policy (security@daytona.io or GitHub private reporting, acknowledgement within 5 business days, discretionary rewards) covers app.daytona.io and the clients repository. The SafeBase trust centre lists SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001 and HIPAA, with reports and a pen-test summary on request. Four advisories were published on GitHub in June 2026. No security.txt (404 on 2 November), and a discretionary reward doesn't count as a bounty. Read as modal-sandboxes' 15 (15). 27 + 6 + 5 + 5 + 15 + 15 = 73.
- InstaVM (41): Plain API keys in a header, with API endpoints to create, list and delete them and no scopes found (20 of 30). Egress policies per session or VM can block all outbound traffic or allow named domains and CIDRs, but llms.txt describes full network access as the default (8 of 20). No guidance on untrusted output from executed code or browser sessions (3 of 15). An Audit Logs endpoint group exists in the API reference (10 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found; the privacy policy names none (0 of 20). Total 41.

### Payments & pricing: Daytona +30

- Daytona (50): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-second prices published per vCPU, GiB of memory, GiB of storage and GPU, re-read on 2 November (20). $200 of compute, "no credit card required" (20). Stripe Projects lists Daytona, so an agent can create the account through the operator's Stripe login, per the 1 October check (10). Total 50.
- InstaVM (20): No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Per-second vCPU, memory and storage prices are published without a login (20). The free plan's $50 credit needs a card on file (0). Signup and key minting are in a browser dashboard (0). Total 20.

### Schema & documentation: Daytona +21

- Daytona (87): Three public OpenAPI files, for the main API (OpenAPI 3.0.0, 138 paths and 170 operations on 2 November), the in-sandbox toolbox API and analytics (25). llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). The docs say what each sandbox class is for and what only VM classes can do (15). Typed fields from the spec, with the sandbox class an enum of linux-vm, container and windows (12). The 429 error body is documented and SDK pages carry examples, but we found no error-code reference (10). A public changelog (newest entry 0.225.0 on 16 October 2026) and release tags (15). Total 87.
- InstaVM (66): A public OpenAPI 3.1 spec with 229 operations (25). llms.txt at instavm.io (10). Only 93 of 229 operations have a description, and those read as short summaries without when-not-to-use guidance (8 of 20). FastAPI-generated request schemas with typed fields and required lists (10 of 15). Docs carry code examples for each SDK area, but only 422 validation errors appear in the spec and no error-code reference was found (6 of 15). Paths sit under /v1 and an SDK changelog exists, but the site changelog has one entry, of 11 July 2026 (7 of 15). Total 66.

### Reliability: Daytona +8

- Daytona (85): Better Stack status page at status.app.daytona.io with per-service history, read from its RSS feed and incident pages on 2 November (20). The two Windows runner outages (31 July and 1 August) have left the 90 days from 4 August. The window holds a degradation of new sandbox creation in us-central-1 (11 August, 17.5 hours), elevated creation errors for 4 minutes (4 September), a builder queue backlog (12 September), sandbox listing degraded on 1 and 30 October, reduced GPU capacity (16 October), some dashboard settings unavailable (22 October) and a provider outage on a subset of US runners (29 and 30 October). Each is one region, one endpoint or a subset of runners, so partial and minor (20). Rate limits published per tier, 10,000 to 50,000 general requests and 300 to 600 sandbox creations a minute (15). 429s carry `Retry-After-{throttler}` and `X-RateLimit-*` headers, and the docs advise exponential backoff (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s). No idempotency keys found (10). An SLA page (last updated 22 August 2025) commits to 99.95% monthly uptime with service credits for Tier 4 and above (10). GA (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 85.
- InstaVM (77): Hosted lines. Better Stack status page with four components, including the public API (20). The incident history shows no incidents for September, October or November 2026 (30). No rate limits with numbers found; Pro promises higher limits without figures (0). The Python SDK has a RateLimitError and an example retry loop with exponential backoff, but no 429 or Retry-After is documented, and there is no idempotency guidance (7 of 15). The terms commit to 99.9% monthly uptime with service credits, and Pro lists 99.9% (10). No beta or preview label on the API (10). Total 77.

### Transparency & trust: Daytona +7

- Daytona (64): SDKs and API clients are Apache-2.0 and the CLI is AGPL-3.0, but the platform code went private in June 2026 (20). Privacy policy and terms (both updated 22 August 2025) and a DPA (last updated 13 October 2026) that returns or deletes customer personal data at termination or on request. The docs say stopped, paused and archived sandboxes are kept until you delete them, with no retention period after deletion (15). Breaking changes appear in release notes, with no deprecation policy or dated notices found (5). Shared regions in the US and EU are named, and the DPA points to a sub-processor list with service and location in the trust centre, with 30 days' email notice of changes. The trust centre shows Latitude.sh, Leaseweb, OVHcloud and Stripe, and we couldn't read the locations (15). 20 + 15 + 5 + 15 = 55.
- InstaVM (57): Closed service with clear terms (15). The terms and privacy policy agree on keeping code and execution logs up to one year and US storage, and the policy names Stripe, PostHog and Resend, but allows training on anonymised, aggregated data derived from user content with opt-out by email and mentions no DPA (18 of 30). No deprecation policy or notices found (0 of 20). US data location stated and three subprocessors named, cloud providers unnamed (12 of 20). Total 45.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Daytona | InstaVM | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 85 | 77 | Daytona +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 66 | Daytona +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 51 | Daytona +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 41 | Daytona +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 20 | Daytona +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 35 | Daytona +45 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 57 | Daytona +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.7 · B** | **52.1 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Daytona | InstaVM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Daytona | Checksum Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.daytona.io/api` | `https://api.instavm.io` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs and API clients), AGPL-3.0 (CLI) | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-07-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-08-22 | 2026-01-26 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-22 | 2026-01-26 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 6 stars, 706k npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk | 57 npm/wk, 370 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Daytona

- +3.4 on 2 November 2026: terms, new evidence, correction, time
- no change on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.1 on 8 October 2026: checklist

### InstaVM

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Daytona.** API keys with per-action scopes let an agent create sandboxes without deleting them, and an SLA commits to 99.95% uptime. The container class shares the host kernel, only VM classes get their own, and Daytona fixed two High cross-tenant flaws in June 2026.

**InstaVM.** InstaVM runs agent code in hosted Firecracker microVMs through a public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, Python and JavaScript SDKs, with per-second prices, egress policies and a 99.9% uptime commitment in its terms. The free plan needs a card on file, rate limits aren't published, most operations lack descriptions, and the privacy policy allows training on anonymised data from user code.

## 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

### InstaVM

1. Send the key in the `X-API-Key` header to https://api.instavm.io; never put it in code run inside the VM
2. Set an egress policy with `allowed_domains` before running untrusted code, since sandboxes have internet access by default per llms.txt
3. Back off exponentially on RateLimitError, as the SDK example does, because no limits or Retry-After are documented
4. Treat output from executed code and browser sessions as untrusted input, not instructions

## Questions

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

Daytona scores 67.7 (B) on agent readiness against InstaVM's 52.1 (D), and leads in every scored category.

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

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. Daytona has a hosted endpoint at https://app.daytona.io/api and InstaVM at https://api.instavm.io.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Daytona or InstaVM

- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-daytona.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-instavm.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-daytona.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-instavm.md)
- [Celesto (formerly SmolVM) vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celesto-vs-daytona.md)
- [Celesto (formerly SmolVM) vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celesto-vs-instavm.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-daytona.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-instavm.md)
- [Daytona vs DeltaBox Lite](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-deltabox-lite.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 Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Daytona vs Maritime](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-maritime.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 Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Daytona vs SPACE](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-perplexity-space.md)
- [Daytona vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-runloop.md)
- [Daytona vs Sandbox0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-sandbox0.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 InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-instavm.md)
- [E2B vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-instavm.md)
- [Freestyle vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-instavm.md)
- [InstaVM vs Maritime](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-maritime.md)
- [InstaVM vs Microsoft Execution Containers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-microsoft-execution-containers.md)
- [InstaVM vs Modal Sandboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-modal-sandboxes.md)
- [InstaVM vs Morph Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-morph-cloud.md)
- [InstaVM vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-offscreen.md)
- [InstaVM vs SPACE](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-perplexity-space.md)
- [InstaVM vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-runloop.md)
- [InstaVM vs Sandbox0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-sandbox0.md)
- [InstaVM vs Sprites](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-sprites.md)
- [InstaVM vs Together Code Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-together-code-sandbox.md)
- [InstaVM vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instavm-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Agent 37 Cloud vs Daytona](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent37-vs-daytona.md)
- [Agent 37 Cloud vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent37-vs-instavm.md)
- [DeltaBox Lite vs InstaVM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-instavm.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp