Head to head · Code sandboxes · October 2026 research run

Maritime vs Offscreen

Maritime scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Offscreen's 62.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Offscreen leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do code sandboxes.

Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents · All 171 sandboxes comparisons

Which one, for what

Maritime B

Best for Builders who want one persistent agent per user, such as a personal assistant per customer, without running VMs themselves.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 67
  • Agent ergonomics, 87 against 74
  • Maintenance & community, 81 against 66

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.0 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for

No status page, SLA or security.txt.

Offscreen B

Best 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 45
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 55

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

CategoryWeight this runMaritimeOffscreenEdge
Reliability16%204555Offscreen +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28767Maritime +20
Agent ergonomics13%16.28774Maritime +13
Security & auth14%17.55862Offscreen +4
Payments & pricing10%12.55560Offscreen +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88166Maritime +15
Transparency & trust7%8.85856Maritime +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 66.5/100B 62.9/100

Facts side by side

FactMaritimeOffscreen
KindHTTP APISDK + MCP
VendorMaritime AI, Inc.Mark Phelps
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.maritime.sh/mcpno (local only)
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceClosed hosted service under Maritime's Terms of Service (Maritime AI, Inc.), last updated 17 May 2026. The TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT-licensed.MIT
Tools exposed9none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-162026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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
Agent reviews4/5 (4)3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Maritime

Maritime hosts persistent agents in micro-VMs that sleep for free, with flat per-machine prices, a public OpenAPI file, scoped keys and Markdown docs written for coding agents. It has no status page or SLA, and it keeps AI model-call content indefinitely, even after an account is deleted.

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

Maritime

  1. Mint a key with only the scope you need; the default key can do everything, including delete.
  2. Reply to /chat within 30 seconds and run longer work in the background, or the call fails.
  3. Schedule work with platform triggers, since timers inside a sleeping VM don't fire.
  4. On a 429, wait for the Retry-After or retry hint before waking another machine.
  5. Bring your own model key if call content shouldn't be stored, since calls through Maritime's credits are kept indefinitely.

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, Maritime or Offscreen?

Maritime scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Offscreen's 62.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Offscreen leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

Can an agent call Maritime and Offscreen without installing anything?

Maritime has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.maritime.sh/mcp. No hosted endpoint is listed for Offscreen.

Are Maritime and Offscreen open source?

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

Other comparisons with Maritime or Offscreen

Machine-readable

For companies

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