Head to head · Sandbox code · October 2026 research run

Sprites vs Together Code Sandbox

Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against Together Code Sandbox's 53.6 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Together Code Sandbox leads on schema & documentation. Both do sandbox code.

Which one, for what

Sprites C

Good 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 25
  • Security & auth, 59 against 47
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

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

Together Code Sandbox D

Good for Teams already buying from Together, and former CodeSandbox SDK users, who want Docker-defined sandboxes with disk and memory snapshots from Python or TypeScript.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 86 against 74

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

The SDK and CLI work only for organisations Together has enabled, and the docs say to contact Together for access

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSpritesTogether Code SandboxEdge
Reliability16%205525Sprites +30
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27486Together Code Sandbox +12
Agent ergonomics13%16.26870Together Code Sandbox +2
Security & auth14%17.55947Sprites +12
Payments & pricing10%12.53020Sprites +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88083Together Code Sandbox +3
Transparency & trust7%8.85960Together Code Sandbox +1
Negative events≤15-20
Total58.3 · C53.6 · D

Facts side by side

FactSpritesTogether Code Sandbox
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorFly.ioTogether AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.bartender.codesandbox.io
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Fly.io Terms of Service. The JavaScript, Go, Python and Elixir SDKs are MITProprietary service under Together's terms of service. The SDKs, CLI and OpenAPI documents on GitHub are MIT
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-062026-10-07
Terms last updated2026-04-29no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-24no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity158k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk3 stars, 1.3k npm/wk, 3.4k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

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.

Together Code Sandbox

Two public OpenAPI documents, MIT clients for Python and TypeScript, cursor pagination and built-in retries make the surface easy for an agent to drive. Access is the limit. Together enables the SDK per organisation on request, publishes no rate limits or SLA, and neither status page names the sandbox service.

Before you call either

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

Together Code Sandbox

  1. Confirm the organisation is on Together's allowlist before installing. A valid TOGETHER_API_KEY alone is not enough
  2. Build a snapshot first with snapshots.create. No default image exists, and every sandbox needs snapshot_id or snapshot_alias
  3. Set ttl at creation or call terminate(). Nothing stops a sandbox otherwise, and closing the Python client leaves it running
  4. Store the snapshot alias, not the sandbox ID. A terminated sandbox can't restart, and its state lives at sandbox:<id>
  5. Exclude snapshots.create from retries with should_retry, and set experimental.network_policy before serving anything private on a port

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Sprites or Together Code Sandbox?

Sprites scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against Together Code Sandbox's 53.6 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Together Code Sandbox leads on schema & documentation.

Do Sprites and Together Code Sandbox need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Sprites and Together Code Sandbox without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Sprites. Together Code Sandbox has a hosted endpoint at https://api.bartender.codesandbox.io.

Other comparisons with Sprites or Together Code Sandbox

Machine-readable

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