# E2B vs InstaVM (slim)

> E2B scores 70.1 (BB) to InstaVM's 52.1 (D) for code sandboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-instavm.md (~4,450 tokens) · this version ~2,280 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-instavm.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-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)

E2B scores 70.1 (BB) on agent readiness against InstaVM's 52.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do code sandboxes.

- E2B: BB 70.1, rank #215 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/e2b.min.md
- InstaVM: D 52.1, rank #1000 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/instavm.min.md
- E2B, good for Code interpreters and agent workspaces that pause and resume with memory, and teams that may want to self-host later. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 92 against 66; Agent ergonomics, 70 against 51; Security & auth, 62 against 41; Payments & pricing, 50 against 20; Maintenance & community, 93 against 35; Transparency & trust, 70 against 57. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- InstaVM, good for Hosted microVM sandboxes with browser, desktop, OCI images, clones and public shares. Also No incidents deducted, where E2B loses 3 points for them.

| Category | E2B | InstaVM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 77 | 77 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 92 | 66 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 70 | 51 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 41 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 93 | 35 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 70 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | E2B | InstaVM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | E2B | Checksum Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.e2b.app` | `https://api.instavm.io` |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | none |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2026-07-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-12-04 | 2026-01-26 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-04-08 | 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 |
| Popularity | 13k stars, 2.2M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk | 57 npm/wk, 370 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, E2B +58: E2B 93 (e2b 2.62.0 tagged on 28 October 2026 in both SDKs (30). 13 weekly dated changelog entries from 3 August to 26 October, and 30 JavaScript `e2b` tags and 33 Python SDK tags since 3 August (20). Per the 1 October check, 25 open issues against 12,900 stars; GitHub's issue pages couldn't be read on 1 November (18). Current official Python and JavaScript SDKs (15). Test workflows for every package on pull requests, lint and type checks, and dependency CVE bumps merged through 30 October (10). The 1 October note gave 5 because CI wasn't checked.); 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.)
- Payments & pricing, E2B +30: E2B 50 (No x402, MPP or L402. A third-party draft pull request (#1910) proposes an `@e2b/x402` package and isn't merged (0). Per-second prices published, $0.000014 a vCPU-second and $0.0000045 a GiB-second (20). A one-time $100 credit on Hobby, and the billing docs ask for a payment method only once it runs out (20). Stripe Projects lists E2B, so an agent can create the account through the operator's Stripe login (10).); 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, E2B +26: E2B 92 (Public OpenAPI at docs.e2b.dev/openapi-public.yaml, linked from llms.txt (25). llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). The docs explain when to pause rather than kill, how the runtime limit resets on resume, and what a snapshot keeps (15). Typed fields in the spec and SDKs (12). Versioned SDK references with an errors page, and examples on most pages (15). A weekly dated changelog, and v2 sandbox endpoints since 21 September 2026 (15).); 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.)
- Security & auth, E2B +21: E2B 62 (One plain API key per project in `X-API-Key`. Workload identity tokens give code inside a sandbox short-lived credentials, and personal access tokens were switched off on 1 August 2026. We found no scopes or documented rotation for API keys (20). Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own kernel (10). Internet access can be switched off or limited with allow and deny lists of domains, IPs and CIDR ranges, GA, though it's on by default (10). Stored secrets are filled into outbound HTTPS headers by the egress proxy, outside the sandbox, but per-host request transforms are in public beta (12). No audit log found for the hosted service (0). security@e2b.dev for reports and a SOC 2 Type II report with a pen-test summary in the trust centre. No security.txt, bug bounty or public advisories found (10).); 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.)
- Agent ergonomics, E2B +19: E2B 70 (No field selection on sandbox objects, and command output streams rather than truncating (15). Sandbox list sorting and filters since 24 August 2026, and snapshot name filters (15). Typed SDK errors and 429s with `Retry-After` (15). The SDKs retry 429s, 502s and 503s on their own and don't replay sandbox creation after other network errors, and since 26 October a failed create can carry a `Should-Retry` header. There are no idempotency keys for creates (10 of 20, as scalekit-agentkit and deepl-api for documented retry semantics without a key). Python and JavaScript SDKs and a CLI. A sandbox starts with no required parameters and a 5-minute default timeout (15).); 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, E2B +13: E2B 70 (The infrastructure that runs E2B Cloud is Apache-2.0 in e2b-dev/runtime (formerly e2b-dev/infra) and can be self-hosted (30). The security FAQ says sandboxes run on Google Cloud with its default encryption at rest, a DPA template and SOC 2 report sit in the trust centre, and paused sandboxes are kept with no expiry. The privacy policy (last modified 8 April 2024) gives no retention periods for sandbox data (20). Dated deprecation notices, such as access tokens switched off on 1 August 2026 and `apiUrl` kept until the next major, but no general policy (15). Google Cloud and the US and EU clusters are named. There's no published subprocessor list, and the FAQ says to ask support (10).); 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.)