# Deno Sandbox vs Freestyle

> Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Deno Sandbox's 50.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Deno Sandbox leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do sandbox code. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-freestyle
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-freestyle.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-freestyle.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-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

Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Deno Sandbox's 50.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Deno Sandbox leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do sandbox code.

- Deno Sandbox: grade D, 50.3/100, rank #689 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deno-sandbox.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deno-sandbox.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

### Deno Sandbox (D)

Good 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 43
- Security & auth, 61 against 53
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 41

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

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 45

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

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 | Deno Sandbox | Freestyle | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 43 | Deno Sandbox +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 86 | Freestyle +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 69 | Freestyle +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 53 | Deno Sandbox +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 45 | Freestyle +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 71 | Freestyle +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 41 | Deno Sandbox +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.3 · D** | **58.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Deno Sandbox | Freestyle |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Deno Land Inc. | Freestyle Cloud Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.freestyle.sh/v5` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Deno Deploy terms and conditions. The `@deno/sandbox` and `deno-sandbox` SDKs are MIT | Proprietary service with no published terms of service found. The `freestyle` SDK and CLI package on npm is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-22 | 2026-09-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-30 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-30 | 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 | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 6 stars, 2k npm/wk, 32k PyPI/wk | 72k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Deno Sandbox or Freestyle?

Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Deno Sandbox's 50.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Deno Sandbox leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Do Deno Sandbox and Freestyle need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Deno Sandbox and Freestyle without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Deno Sandbox. Freestyle has a hosted endpoint at https://api.freestyle.sh/v5.


## For agents

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

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