# E2B vs Runloop Devboxes

> E2B has a score of 68.5 (B) against Runloop Devboxes's 65 (B). Both do sandbox code. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 20 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

E2B has a score of 68.5 (B) against Runloop Devboxes's 65 (B). Both do sandbox code. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 20 points.

- E2B: grade B, 68.5/100, rank #122 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/e2b.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/e2b.json
- Runloop Devboxes: grade B, 65/100, rank #177 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/runloop.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/runloop.json

## Which one, for what

Pick E2B for schema & documentation (+7), maintenance & community (+5), transparency & trust (+20).

Pick Runloop Devboxes for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | E2B | Runloop Devboxes | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 85 | E2B +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 66 | Runloop Devboxes +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 60 | E2B +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 50 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 83 | E2B +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 51 | E2B +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.5 · B** | **65 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | E2B | Runloop Devboxes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | E2B | Runloop |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.e2b.app` | `https://api.runloop.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-08 |
| Popularity | 13k stars, 2.2M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk | 34 stars, 23k npm/wk, 136k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**E2B.** Firecracker microVM with its own kernel per sandbox. Two major incidents over an hour in September 2026, on sandbox creation and on creating from snapshots.

**Runloop Devboxes.** Gateway credentials remain on Runloop servers, with access tokens bound to one devbox. Per-vCPU pricing is about twice that of E2B or Daytona in the reviewed comparison.

## Before you call either

### E2B

1. Set a timeout when you create a sandbox. The default is 5 minutes
2. Pause rather than kill when you'll come back. Resume takes about a second and nothing is billed while paused
3. Use `Secret.fill` in network transforms instead of passing API keys into the sandbox environment
4. Pace sandbox creation. Hobby allows 1 a second and 20 running at once
5. Move to the v2 sandbox endpoints. SDK 2.51.0 and later use them by default

### Runloop Devboxes

1. Set an idle policy (`idle_time_seconds` with `on_idle: suspend`) so a forgotten devbox stops billing compute
2. Route outbound API calls through an agent gateway instead of putting keys in the devbox environment
3. Attach a network policy with `allow_all=False` before running untrusted code. Egress is open by default
4. Restart background services after every resume. Nothing in memory survives
5. Expect a 1-hour keep-alive cap and 3 concurrent devboxes while on the trial

## Other comparisons with E2B or Runloop Devboxes

- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs E2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-e2b.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-runloop.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs E2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-e2b.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-runloop.md)
- [Daytona vs E2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-e2b.md)
- [Daytona vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-runloop.md)
- [E2B vs Modal Sandboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-modal-sandboxes.md)
- [E2B vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Modal Sandboxes vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-sandboxes-vs-runloop.md)
- [Runloop Devboxes vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/runloop-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)