# DeltaBox Lite vs InstaVM (slim)

> DeltaBox Lite scores 56.6 (C) to InstaVM's 52.1 (D) for sandbox fs. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-instavm.md (~5,000 tokens) · this version ~2,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-instavm.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-instavm
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

DeltaBox Lite scores 56.6 (C) on agent readiness against InstaVM's 52.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. InstaVM leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do sandbox fs.

- DeltaBox Lite: C 56.6, rank #825 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deltabox-lite.min.md
- InstaVM: D 52.1, rank #1000 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/instavm.min.md
- DeltaBox Lite, good 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 51; Security & auth, 47 against 41; Payments & pricing, 60 against 20; Maintenance & community, 63 against 35. Also No key needed to call it; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- InstaVM, good for Hosted microVM sandboxes with browser, desktop, OCI images, clones and public shares. Ahead on Reliability, 77 against 47; Transparency & trust, 57 against 46. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | DeltaBox Lite | InstaVM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 47 | 77 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 68 | 66 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 51 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 47 | 41 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 63 | 35 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 46 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | DeltaBox Lite | InstaVM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | DeltaBox (delta-box) | Checksum Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.instavm.io` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | none |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-07-15 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-01-26 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-01-26 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 57 npm/wk, 370 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, DeltaBox Lite +40: DeltaBox Lite 60 (Read with the self-hosted rule. No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Apache-2.0 software with nothing to buy and no hosted option, so 20 for pricing, 20 for free use with no card and 20 because an agent can install it from npm or Homebrew with no account. Total 60.); 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.)
- Reliability, InstaVM +30: DeltaBox Lite 47 (Read with the local-software lines, because DeltaBox Lite runs on the owner's machine. Official npm, Homebrew and checksummed release packages for Linux and macOS on x64 and arm64 and, since 0.1.3, Windows x64, with Node.js 18, glibc 2.39 and a Rust floor stated (20). Since 29 October 2026 a CI workflow runs `cargo test` for the workspace on Linux and macOS and the session tests on two Windows runners, on every push to main and every pull request. The repository holds 388 test functions on 31 October (288 on 17 October). GitHub's Actions pages are refused to our reader, so no run result was read (15 of 25). Open crash and regression issues could not be read because GitHub's web pages and API answer 403 to our reader, so the line is scored absent (0, unchecked). CHANGELOG.md follows Keep a Changelog and declares semantic versioning, with dated entries for 0.1.0 to 0.1.5. No breaking change has shipped, and the 0.1.0 entry still names the old `ddnirvana/tap` Homebrew tap (12 of 15). Version 0.1.5, not declared stable (0). Total 47.); 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.)
- Maintenance & community, DeltaBox Lite +28: DeltaBox Lite 63 (v0.1.5 on 30 October 2026, read from the git tags and changelog (30). Six tagged releases in the last 90 days, v0.1.0 and v0.1.1 on 14 October, v0.1.2 on 20 October, v0.1.3 and v0.1.4 on 21 October and v0.1.5 on 30 October. v0.1.4 only renames the Windows npm package and counts half, which still leaves more than three (20). Issues and pull requests could not be read because GitHub's web pages and API answer 403 to our reader. Git history shows pull requests up to #45 merged, the latest on 31 October, but reply times were not seen (0, unchecked). A Node-API binding with TypeScript declarations ships in the npm package, in one language (8 of 15). Cargo.lock, a stated Rust 1.89 floor and test CI on four runners since 29 October. No Dependabot configuration and no npm provenance attestation, so the earlier partial stands (5 of 10). Total 63.); 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.)
- Agent ergonomics, DeltaBox Lite +16: DeltaBox Lite 67 (A CLI adds no tool definitions to an agent's context. `exec` returns stdout, stderr, the exit code, the duration and a `truncated` flag, but each stream may hold up to 8 MiB before truncation (17 of 25). `diff` takes `from` and `to` checkpoints, text diffs stop at 1 MiB per file and conflict reports at 100 paths. There is no paging or path filter on a diff (10 of 20). Every JSON-RPC error uses code -32000 with a message from 15 typed variants, and only a commit conflict carries structured data (12 of 20). Transactions are the product's job. Abort restores the chosen checkpoint, commit is conflict-checked, `session.sync` folds sibling commits, and sessions survive helper restarts. Not an MCP server, so no tool annotations apply (16 of 20). `deltabox run --commit|--abort -- <cmd>` needs no policy or manifest, and the interfaces are a CLI and a Node binding with TypeScript types (12 of 15). Total 67.); InstaVM 51 (30 operations take limit, offset, cursor or page parameters, with no field selection found (12 of 25). Listing endpoints page, with little filtering (10 of 20). The SDK maps failures to typed exceptions such as AuthenticationError, QuotaExceededError and RateLimitError, but the HTTP error bodies are undocumented (8 of 20). One operation takes an idempotency parameter, and snapshots and clones make work repeatable, with no safe-retry guidance (6 of 20). `client.execute(code=..., language=...)` needs two arguments, with Python and JavaScript SDKs (15). Total 51.)
- Transparency & trust, InstaVM +11: DeltaBox Lite 46 (Apache-2.0 in LICENSE, Cargo.toml and the npm package (30). The pi-deltabox and dsh-deltabox integration repositories linked from the README were not publicly readable on 17 October, and on 4 November they are still git submodules pointing at the old account, though their npm packages carry Apache-2.0 and MIT. No privacy or data-handling statement. The software is local and the source we read sends nothing to the authors, but nothing says so (10). No deprecation policy and no deprecation notices in six dated changelog entries (2). No telemetry or analytics calls were found in DeltaBox's own source, and the docs don't address it. The Windows build links Microsoft MXC crates that include an ETW diagnostics provider. In the pinned revision it is off unless a request sets `experimental.telemetry.enabled`, which DeltaBox's source never does (10). Total 52.); 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.)
- Security & auth, DeltaBox Lite +6: DeltaBox Lite 47 (No credentials to issue or leak, because the runtime runs on the owner's machine, so the middle band (20 of 30). Least privilege is the product's job. Commands see a confined view, common secret paths are denied, the child environment is scrubbed to nine named variables, writes and pending storage are capped, and changes wait for commit or abort. Against that, the default network mode allows every destination, a `read-write` profile reaches the host with no rollback, macOS `cbcow-through` writes the real project at once, and pi-deltabox documents `isolation: none` as its default (14 of 20). Command output is untrusted content returned to the agent, and we found no guidance for reading it. The agent install prompt itself tells the agent it can star the repository through the user's authenticated GitHub CLI, an action outside the user's request (4 of 15). The session journal records each command's `label` against its change set, and diffs show every changed path. No network log was found for the `allow_audit` mode (9 of 15). No SECURITY.md, security.txt, disclosure policy or published advisories (0 of 20). Total 47.); 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.)