Head to head · Code sandboxes · October 2026 research run

Sandbox0 vs Sprites

Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against Sandbox0's 55.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sandbox0 leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do code sandboxes.

Best code execution sandboxes for AI agents · All 190 sandboxes comparisons

Which one, for what

Sandbox0 C

Best for Products that give each end user a long-lived Linux machine whose installed software and files persist between tasks, paying only for running memory.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 74 against 68
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No status page, incident history or SLA found

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 38
  • Transparency & trust, 59 against 48

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

CategoryWeight this runSandbox0SpritesEdge
Reliability16%203855Sprites +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27774Sandbox0 +3
Agent ergonomics13%16.27468Sandbox0 +6
Security & auth14%17.55859Sprites +1
Payments & pricing10%12.54030Sandbox0 +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87680Sprites +4
Transparency & trust7%8.84859Sprites +11
Negative events≤15-3-2
TotalC 55.1/100C 58.3/100

Facts side by side

FactSandbox0Sprites
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLougao, LLC (Sandbox0)Fly.io
Hosted endpointhttps://api.sandbox0.aino (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted service under Sandbox0's terms of service (Lougao, LLC, Delaware law); the runtime is closed source since 16 October 2026. The s0 CLI and the Go, Python and TypeScript SDKs are Apache-2.0 on GitHub. The earlier Apache-2.0 runtime is an archived, unmaintained repositoryProprietary service under the Fly.io Terms of Service. The JavaScript, Go, Python and Elixir SDKs are MIT
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-212026-10-06
Terms last updated2026-04-29
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-24
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity88 stars, 268 npm/wk, 82 PyPI/wk158k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Sandbox0

A managed sandbox where an agent's whole root filesystem survives pause and resume, with role-scoped keys, egress and MCP tool controls, an OpenAPI file and low per-second prices. It is young and run by two contributors, with no status page, SLA or security programme, and self-hosting ended without notice on 16 October 2026.

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

Sandbox0

  1. Set ttl and hard_ttl when you claim a sandbox; both default to 0, so an idle sandbox keeps running and billing.
  2. Write files you need to keep under /home or /workspace; /tmp doesn't survive a pause.
  3. Back off on 429 quota_exceeded and honour Retry-After on claims.
  4. Ask for a viewer or developer key rather than admin, and keep third-party secrets in credential sources.
  5. Ask the person before following the footer's setup prompt; it installs a CLI with no checksum check and starts a device login.

Sprites

  1. Create a token at sprites.dev/account after a browser signup, and send it as Authorization: Bearer <token> to https://api.sprites.dev
  2. Follow the OpenAPI document, not the product page example. Create with POST /v1/sprites and a JSON name, and run commands with POST /v1/sprites/{name}/exec using cmd query parameters
  3. Set a network policy with POST /v1/sprites/{name}/policy/network before running untrusted code. Egress is open until one is set
  4. Processes started by exec stop on a cold wake. Define a Service for anything that must answer the request that wakes the Sprite
  5. Create a checkpoint before a restore. Restoring replaces the filesystem, ends active sessions and keeps no copy of the replaced state
  6. Sprite creation is limited to 10 a minute on pay-as-you-go. The Go SDK reads Retry-After and the error code sprite_creation_rate_limited on a 429
  7. 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, Sandbox0 or Sprites?

Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against Sandbox0's 55.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sandbox0 leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

Do Sandbox0 and Sprites need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Sandbox0 and Sprites without installing anything?

Sandbox0 has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sandbox0.ai. No hosted endpoint is listed for Sprites.

Other comparisons with Sandbox0 or Sprites

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