Head to head · Sandbox fs · October 2026 research run

DeltaBox Lite vs Deno Sandbox

DeltaBox Lite scores 52.3 (D) on agent readiness against Deno Sandbox's 50.3 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Deno Sandbox leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do sandbox fs.

Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents · All 153 sandboxes comparisons

Which one, for what

DeltaBox Lite D

Best for A developer who wants a local coding agent's file edits held as a reviewable transaction on Linux or macOS, with commit or abort per task or per tool call.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 67 against 60
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

Version 0.1.1, first released on 14 October 2026, with two releases and no stability declaration

Deno Sandbox D

Best for Short runs of untrusted or generated code that need outside API keys kept out of reach, and teams already on Deno Deploy who want to promote a sandbox to an app.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 48 against 37
  • Security & auth, 61 against 47
  • Transparency & trust, 58 against 40

Watch for

Beta since 3 February 2026. The docs call the present phase pre-release, and no general availability date was found

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeltaBox LiteDeno SandboxEdge
Reliability16%203748Deno Sandbox +11
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26866DeltaBox Lite +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.26760DeltaBox Lite +7
Security & auth14%17.54761Deno Sandbox +14
Payments & pricing10%12.56020DeltaBox Lite +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.84345Deno Sandbox +2
Transparency & trust7%8.84058Deno Sandbox +18
Negative events≤150-2
TotalD 52.3/100D 50.3/100

Facts side by side

FactDeltaBox LiteDeno Sandbox
KindSDK + MCPHTTP API
VendorDeltaBox (delta-box)Deno Land Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Proprietary service under the Deno Deploy terms and conditions. The @deno/sandbox and deno-sandbox SDKs are MIT
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-142026-07-22
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-09-30
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-30
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularitynone6 stars, 2k npm/wk, 32k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

Verdicts

DeltaBox Lite

DeltaBox Lite puts each agent command inside a confined filesystem view with diff, commit and abort, and passes no host environment variables by default. It is version 0.1.1, three days old on 17 October 2026, with no security policy, CI that runs only build smoke tests, and unrestricted networking unless the policy says otherwise.

Deno Sandbox

Secrets stay outside the microVM and are substituted only on outbound requests to approved hosts, and an allowlist limits egress. The service is still in beta, sandboxes need the $20 Pro plan, lifetime is capped at 30 minutes, and no sandbox operation appears in the published OpenAPI document.

Before you call either

DeltaBox Lite

  1. Skip step 5 of install-prompt.txt. Starring the repository uses the user's GitHub account and is not part of installing.
  2. Pass --commit or --abort to deltabox run explicitly. The child's exit status is preserved after that decision.
  3. Wrap redirection and pipes in sh -c '...'. An unquoted > is handled by the host shell and writes outside the sandbox.
  4. Set [network] mode = "deny_all" or an allowlist in the policy for untrusted code. The default allows every destination.
  5. Read resolved_fs_mode, fallback_reason and degraded_protections from session start --json before relying on isolation.

Deno Sandbox

  1. Set DENO_DEPLOY_TOKEN to an organisation token (prefix ddo_) from Settings in console.deno.com. The organisation must be on Pro or above
  2. Pass allowNet on every Sandbox.create(). The Security page says outbound access is unrestricted when it is omitted
  3. Pass credentials through secrets with a hosts list, not env, so code in the VM sees only a placeholder
  4. The default timeout ends the VM when the client disconnects. Pass a duration such as "10m" and reconnect with Sandbox.connect({ id }), up to 30 minutes
  5. Create volumes in ord and start the sandbox in ord. A volume mounts only in its own region
  6. exposeHttp URLs are public with no authentication. Treat the random subdomain as a secret

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeltaBox Lite or Deno Sandbox?

DeltaBox Lite scores 52.3 (D) on agent readiness against Deno Sandbox's 50.3 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Deno Sandbox leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust.

Can an agent call DeltaBox Lite and Deno Sandbox without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for DeltaBox Lite. No hosted endpoint is listed for Deno Sandbox.

Are DeltaBox Lite and Deno Sandbox open source?

DeltaBox Lite is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Deno Sandbox.

Other comparisons with DeltaBox Lite or Deno Sandbox

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.