Head to head · Code sandboxes · October 2026 research run
SPACE vs Sprites
Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do code sandboxes.
Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents · All 120 sandboxes comparisons
Which one, for what
SPACE C
Best 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 59
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 59
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
- 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)
Sprites C
Best for Agents that need a long-lived machine with installed tools and files kept between sessions, and rollback by checkpoint.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 55 against 32
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 26
Watch for
Four Sprites incidents on the status page in 90 days, including a partial outage of 7 hours 28 minutes on 23 September 2026 and failed creates outside Europe for 28 minutes on 8 October
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | SPACE | Sprites | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 32 | 55 | Sprites +23 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 74 | SPACE +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 66 | 68 | Sprites +2 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 64 | 59 | SPACE +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 30 | SPACE +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 26 | 80 | Sprites +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 68 | 59 | SPACE +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| Total | C 56.2/100 | C 58.3/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | SPACE | Sprites |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Perplexity | Fly.io |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under the Fly.io Terms of Service. The JavaScript, Go, Python and Elixir SDKs are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-04-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-24 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | |
| Popularity | none | 158k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |
Verdicts
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.
Sprites
A Sprite keeps a 100 GB ext4 disk between runs, bills compute only while active and can be checkpointed and restored through a published OpenAPI contract. The status page records four Sprites incidents in the last 90 days, one lasting over seven hours, and outbound network access is unrestricted until a policy is set.
Before you call either
SPACE
- Ask your operator for the API base URL (before
/v1, or/api/v1on shared hosts), the data-plane URL and a bearer token before planning any call - Poll the returned operation until it succeeds and the sandbox is
runningbefore creating a command. A 202 response is not readiness - Attach to the command's events URL with its session token to start the process, decode base64 output, and treat only
process_exitedas completion - Send an
Idempotency-Keyon creates, lifecycle calls and commands, and retry only whenretryableis true, after anyRetry-After - Save output as it arrives. Reconnecting with
Last-Event-IDreturnsresync_required, not the missed output
Sprites
- Create a token at sprites.dev/account after a browser signup, and send it as
Authorization: Bearer <token>tohttps://api.sprites.dev - Follow the OpenAPI document, not the product page example. Create with
POST /v1/spritesand a JSONname, and run commands withPOST /v1/sprites/{name}/execusingcmdquery parameters - Set a network policy with
POST /v1/sprites/{name}/policy/networkbefore running untrusted code. Egress is open until one is set - Processes started by exec stop on a cold wake. Define a Service for anything that must answer the request that wakes the Sprite
- Create a checkpoint before a restore. Restoring replaces the filesystem, ends active sessions and keeps no copy of the replaced state
- Sprite creation is limited to 10 a minute on pay-as-you-go. The Go SDK reads
Retry-Afterand the error codesprite_creation_rate_limitedon a 429 - Delete Sprites you no longer need. An idle Sprite still bills cold storage for the bytes it holds
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, SPACE or Sprites?
Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.
Do SPACE and Sprites need an API key?
SPACE takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Sprites needs an API key.
Can an agent call SPACE and Sprites without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for SPACE. No hosted endpoint is listed for Sprites.
Are SPACE and Sprites open source?
SPACE is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Sprites.
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- Daytona vs SPACE
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- Deno Sandbox vs SPACE
- Deno Sandbox vs Sprites
- E2B vs SPACE
- E2B vs Sprites
- Freestyle vs SPACE
- Freestyle vs Sprites
- Microsoft Execution Containers vs SPACE
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- Modal Sandboxes vs SPACE
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- Morph Cloud vs SPACE
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- SPACE vs Runloop Devboxes
- SPACE vs Together Code Sandbox
- SPACE vs Vercel Sandbox
- Runloop Devboxes vs Sprites
- Sprites vs Together Code Sandbox
- Sprites vs Vercel Sandbox
- Agent 37 Cloud vs SPACE
- Agent 37 Cloud vs Sprites
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/perplexity-space-vs-sprites.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/perplexity-space.json·/api/v1/tools/sprites.json - From a terminal
anchor compare perplexity-space sprites(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "perplexity-space", "b": "sprites"}at/mcp, no key