# Freestyle vs SPACE

> Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) to SPACE's 56.2 (C) for code sandboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-perplexity-space
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-perplexity-space.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-perplexity-space.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freestyle-vs-perplexity-space.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: 2026-10-16

Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do code sandboxes.

- Freestyle: grade C, 58.5/100, rank #616 of 1098. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/freestyle.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/freestyle.json
- SPACE: grade C, 56.2/100, rank #683 of 1098. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/perplexity-space.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/perplexity-space.json
- Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/code-sandboxes/index.md
- All 120 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:
- Reliability, 43 against 32
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 75
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 26

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

### SPACE (C)

Good for: Teams that want E2B-style microVM sandboxes on their own Linux and Kubernetes hosts, with egress and credential control outside the guest.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 64 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 41

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: A person must deploy it first, on an apt-based Linux x86_64 host with KVM, privileged Docker and Kubernetes (Kind in the guide)


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Freestyle | SPACE | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 43 | 32 | Freestyle +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 75 | Freestyle +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 66 | Freestyle +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 64 | SPACE +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 60 | SPACE +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 26 | Freestyle +45 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 41 | 68 | SPACE +27 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **58.5 · C** | **56.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Freestyle | SPACE |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Freestyle Cloud Inc. | Perplexity |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.freestyle.sh/v5` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | none |
| 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.

**SPACE.** Once deployed, SPACE's native API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 contract, stable error codes with a retryable flag and 24-hour idempotency keys, and egress and credential controls sit outside the VM. A person must first deploy it on a Linux x86_64 host with KVM and Kubernetes. Version 0.8.0 has no tagged release, changelog or public container images.

## 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

### SPACE

1. Ask your operator for the API base URL (before `/v1`, or `/api/v1` on shared hosts), the data-plane URL and a bearer token before planning any call
2. Poll the returned operation until it succeeds and the sandbox is `running` before creating a command. A 202 response is not readiness
3. Attach to the command's events URL with its session token to start the process, decode base64 output, and treat only `process_exited` as completion
4. Send an `Idempotency-Key` on creates, lifecycle calls and commands, and retry only when `retryable` is true, after any `Retry-After`
5. Save output as it arrives. Reconnecting with `Last-Event-ID` returns `resync_required`, not the missed output

## Questions

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

Freestyle scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do Freestyle and SPACE need an API key?

Freestyle needs an API key. SPACE takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

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

### Are Freestyle and SPACE open source?

No open-source release is listed for Freestyle. SPACE is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Freestyle or SPACE

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

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp