# Freestyle vs Offscreen

> Offscreen scores 62.9 (B) to Freestyle's 58.5 (C) for code sandboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-offscreen
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-offscreen.md (~2,650 tokens)
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-offscreen.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

Offscreen scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Freestyle's 58.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Freestyle leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do code sandboxes.

- Freestyle: grade C, 58.5/100, rank #635 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/freestyle.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/freestyle.json
- Offscreen: grade B, 62.9/100, rank #456 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/offscreen.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/offscreen.json
- Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/code-sandboxes/index.md
- All 153 sandboxes comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/code-sandboxes/index.md

## Which one, for what

### 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 67
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 66

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: No terms of service or service agreement found on the site, and the privacy policy covers the website only

### Offscreen (B)

Good for: A coding agent working on a macOS or iOS app on the developer's own Apple silicon Mac, which needs to run UI tests, the Simulator or the built app without taking the screen.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 69
- Security & auth, 62 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 41

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: First commit 11 October 2026, version 0.0.5 and labelled beta, with JSON field names that may change before 1.0


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Freestyle | Offscreen | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 43 | 55 | Offscreen +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 67 | Freestyle +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 74 | Offscreen +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 62 | Offscreen +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 60 | Offscreen +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 66 | Freestyle +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 41 | 56 | Offscreen +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **58.5 · C** | **62.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Freestyle | Offscreen |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Freestyle Cloud Inc. | Mark Phelps |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.freestyle.sh/v5` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service with no published terms of service found. The `freestyle` SDK and CLI package on npm is MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 72k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Offscreen.** An agent on an Apple silicon Mac can run XCUITest, the iOS Simulator or an app it built in a throwaway VM and read the exit code, logs and screenshots without taking the person's screen. The project is six days old at v0.0.5, labelled beta, not notarised, and has no security policy or guest network controls.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Offscreen

1. Read `.offscreen.toml` before running anything and use its `project` key and task names. Don't guess them
2. Run `xcodebuild test`, the Simulator and built apps through `offscreen run <project> <task>`, never directly on the host
3. Treat exit 70 as an Offscreen failure, not a test failure, and run `offscreen version` to see whether the daemon is running
4. Ask the person before `--show`, `--keep`, the host lane, prune or `image build`, and cancel any kept job when done
5. Read screenshots and `.xcresult` bundles from the directory `offscreen artifacts <job>` prints

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Freestyle or Offscreen?

Offscreen scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Freestyle's 58.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Freestyle leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Can an agent call Freestyle and Offscreen without installing anything?

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

### Are Freestyle and Offscreen open source?

No open-source release is listed for Freestyle. Offscreen is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Freestyle or Offscreen

- [Agent 37 Cloud vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent37-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-code-interpreter-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Blaxel Sandboxes vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/blaxel-sandboxes-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Cloudflare Sandbox SDK vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-sandbox-sdk-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Daytona vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Daytona vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/daytona-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Deno Sandbox vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-freestyle.md)
- [Deno Sandbox vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deno-sandbox-vs-offscreen.md)
- [E2B vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-freestyle.md)
- [E2B vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/e2b-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Freestyle vs Microsoft Execution Containers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-microsoft-execution-containers.md)
- [Freestyle vs Modal Sandboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-modal-sandboxes.md)
- [Freestyle vs Morph Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-morph-cloud.md)
- [Freestyle vs SPACE](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-perplexity-space.md)
- [Freestyle vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-runloop.md)
- [Freestyle vs Sprites](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-sprites.md)
- [Freestyle vs Together Code Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-together-code-sandbox.md)
- [Freestyle vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Microsoft Execution Containers vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-execution-containers-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Modal Sandboxes vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/modal-sandboxes-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Morph Cloud vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/morph-cloud-vs-offscreen.md)
- [Offscreen vs SPACE](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/offscreen-vs-perplexity-space.md)
- [Offscreen vs Runloop Devboxes](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/offscreen-vs-runloop.md)
- [Offscreen vs Sprites](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/offscreen-vs-sprites.md)
- [Offscreen vs Together Code Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/offscreen-vs-together-code-sandbox.md)
- [Offscreen vs Vercel Sandbox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/offscreen-vs-vercel-sandbox.md)
- [Agent 37 Cloud vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent37-vs-freestyle.md)
- [DeltaBox Lite vs Freestyle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-freestyle.md)
- [DeltaBox Lite vs Offscreen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deltabox-lite-vs-offscreen.md)

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