# SPACE vs Vercel Sandbox

> Vercel Sandbox scores 69.6 (B) to SPACE's 56.2 (C) for code sandboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-16

Vercel Sandbox scores 69.6 (B) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on payments & pricing. Both do code sandboxes.

- 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
- Vercel Sandbox: grade B, 69.6/100, rank #187 of 1098. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-sandbox.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-sandbox.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

### 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:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

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)

### Vercel Sandbox (B)

Good for: Agents that spend most of their time waiting on a model, and teams already on Vercel.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 32
- Security & auth, 80 against 64
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 26
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 68

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for: Tied to a Vercel team and project even when called from elsewhere, and access tokens reach the whole team


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | SPACE | Vercel Sandbox | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 32 | 70 | Vercel Sandbox +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 77 | Vercel Sandbox +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 65 | SPACE +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 80 | Vercel Sandbox +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | SPACE +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 26 | 80 | Vercel Sandbox +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 75 | Vercel Sandbox +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **56.2 · C** | **69.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SPACE | Vercel Sandbox |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Perplexity | Vercel |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.vercel.com/v1/sandboxes` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes, with an opt-out |
| 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 |  | yes |
| Popularity | none | 168 stars, 6.5M npm/wk, 462k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Vercel Sandbox.** Active CPU billing, so waiting on model responses costs only memory. Tied to a Vercel team and project even when called from elsewhere, and access tokens reach the whole team.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Vercel Sandbox

1. Call `sandbox.stop()` when the task is done. Memory bills until the session ends
2. Use `Sandbox.getOrCreate` with a name so retries land in the same sandbox
3. Set `networkPolicy` to `deny-all` for untrusted code. The default is allow-all
4. Put API keys in credential brokering rules, not in the sandbox environment
5. Pass `persistent: false` for one-off runs so no snapshot is stored or billed

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, SPACE or Vercel Sandbox?

Vercel Sandbox scores 69.6 (B) on agent readiness against SPACE's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. SPACE leads on payments & pricing.

### Do SPACE and Vercel Sandbox need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call SPACE and Vercel Sandbox without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for SPACE. Vercel Sandbox has a hosted endpoint at https://api.vercel.com/v1/sandboxes.

### Are SPACE and Vercel Sandbox open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with SPACE or Vercel Sandbox

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

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