Agent vs E2B

Kubernetes-native controller and CRDs for agent sandboxes, delegating isolation to gVisor or Kata Containers, with warm pools for fast allocation. For teams that run their own Kubernetes clusters. Agent is free software you run yourself, so it has no hourly price; E2B lists $0.166 an hour for a 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox.

gvisorkatakubernetesopen-sourceself-hosted

Verified 11 Nov 2026

Visit Agent Compare with E2B and others

Agent against E2B, line by line

E2B baseline sources

Field	-E2B (baseline)	+Agent	Change
2 vCPU + 4 GiB, per hour	$0.166 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	Agent: no figure
vCPU, per hour	$0.0504 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	Agent: no figure
Memory, per GiB-hour	$0.0162 (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	Agent: no figure
Billed on	wall clock (source: E2B Pricing)	free (OSS) (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	differs
Isolation	Firecracker microVM (source: E2B homepage)	pluggable (gVisor/Kata) (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	differs
Max session	1 h (Hobby), 24 h (Pro) (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	Agent: no figure
Persistence	state kept, pause/resume, memory kept, fork (source: E2B homepage)	state kept, pause/resume (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	differs
Self-host	Yes, Apache-2.0 (source: E2B runtime (GitHub))	Yes, Apache-2.0 (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	same
Your own cloud (BYOC)	Yes (source: E2B homepage)	not published	Agent: no figure
GPU	No (source: E2B Pricing)	not published	Agent: no figure
SDKs	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript (source: E2B Pricing)	Python, Go (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	differs
SOC 2	Type II (source: E2B homepage)	not published	Agent: no figure
Free tier	Hobby: $0 plan fee, one-time $100 usage credit, 10 concurrent sandboxes, 1-hour sessions. (source: E2B Pricing)	Free open-source software (Apache-2.0). (source: kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub))	differs

Prices are list prices for one hour of a 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox: 2 × the vCPU rate + 4 × the memory rate. Each value links to the page it came from; not published means the vendor states no figure. How we compare.

Pick Agent instead of E2B when

you want to run the sandbox layer yourself under a Apache-2.0 licence (E2B's runtime is Apache-2.0 and self-hostable too).
you are prototyping: Free open-source software (Apache-2.0).

Stay on E2B when

you run model-written code you do not control and want a dedicated kernel per sandbox: E2B uses Firecracker microVMs, Agent uses pluggable (gVisor/Kata).
pause has to keep running memory as well as files: E2B's pause saves both, and Agent does not state memory state in our data.
you need a SOC 2 report: E2B states Type II, and Agent states none in our data.
you want managed cloud, your own cloud account and self-hosting from one vendor: E2B offers all three, with BYOC on its Enterprise plan, and Agent offers one of them.

All Agent facts

Source per value

Isolation Isolation technology the vendor states for each sandbox.: pluggable (gVisor/Kata) 1
Other isolation options Alternative runtimes the vendor offers besides the default (e.g. VM runtime, gVisor for GPU).: Not published
Deployment Managed cloud service, self-hosted software, or both.: self-hosted 1
Billing basis What the meter counts: wall-clock allocated resources, active CPU only, requests/plan quota, session-hours, or free software.: free (OSS) 1
vCPU price $/vCPU-hr Published on-demand CPU rate normalised to USD per vCPU-hour (per-second rates multiplied by 3,600; per-core rates divided by vCPUs per core where the vendor defines it). Lowest public tier, default region. 0 means the vendor states no separate CPU charge.: Not published
Memory price $/GiB-hr Published memory rate normalised to USD per GiB-hour (GB treated as GiB where the vendor does not distinguish). 0 means the vendor states memory is free.: Not published
Sandbox from $/sandbox-hr Smallest published per-sandbox hourly price, where the vendor publishes one.: Not published
Paid plan from $/mo Cheapest paid platform plan fee (before usage).: Not published
Free tier A free plan, free monthly allowance or sign-up credit exists.: Yes 1
Free tier detail What the free tier or credit includes, as published.: Free open-source software (Apache-2.0). 1
Cold start ms Vendor-published create/boot time in milliseconds (a vendor claim, not our benchmark). Only filled when the vendor publishes a number; see startup_claim for percentile and conditions.: Not published
Resume time ms Vendor-published resume-from-pause/standby/snapshot time in milliseconds.: Not published
Startup claim The vendor's startup/resume wording with conditions, quoted or closely paraphrased.: SandboxWarmPool keeps pre-warmed sandboxes ready to claim (no figure published) 1
Max session length Longest single sandbox session by plan, as published.: Not published
Persistence / snapshots Filesystem state can be kept between runs (snapshots, persistent disks, volumes).: Yes 1
Pause / resume A sandbox can be paused, suspended, hibernated or put in standby and resumed later.: Yes 1
Memory state kept Pause/hibernate preserves running memory state, not only the filesystem.: Not published
Fork / branch A running or snapshotted sandbox can be cloned into new sandboxes.: Not published
GPU GPU sandboxes are offered.: Not published
Self-host Can run on your own hardware or cluster (open source or licensed).: Yes 1
BYOC / VPC Vendor-managed deployment inside your own cloud account.: Not published
Open source Core sandbox runtime is published under an open-source licence.: Yes 1
Licence Open-source licence of the runtime, if any.: Apache-2.0 1
SDKs / languages Official SDK languages (or supported execution languages where noted).: Python, Go 1
Regions Published regions or region count.: Not published
Max vCPU per sandbox vCPU Largest published vCPU count per sandbox on any self-serve or enterprise plan.: Not published
Max memory per sandbox GiB Largest published memory per sandbox.: Not published
Concurrency Published concurrent sandbox limits by plan.: Not published
SOC 2 SOC 2 status as stated by the vendor.: Not published
HIPAA Vendor offers HIPAA-compliant usage/BAA (on any plan).: Not published
2 vCPU + 4 GiB per hour $/hr Hourly list price of one 2 vCPU / 4 GiB sandbox: 2 x the vCPU rate + 4 x the memory rate, from the two published rates. Left empty for self-hosted software and for vendors without both rates. Vendors that bill CPU only while busy (Vercel, Cloudflare, Upstash, Tensorlake, AWS AgentCore) cost less for idle agents than this shows.: Not published
Price vs E2B x E2B The 2 vCPU + 4 GiB hourly price divided by E2B's own ($0.1656 at $0.000014/vCPU-s and $0.0000045/GiB-s). Under 1 is cheaper than E2B.: Not published
Status Preview, experimental, beta, sunset or self-hosting caveats the vendor documents.: Not published

Pricing model: open-source
From: $0.00
Pricing note: Free; you pay for your cluster. Checked 2026-11-09.

Sources

kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox (GitHub) accessed 2026-11-09

Agent in the E2B comparisons

Self-hosted E2B alternativesWhich E2B alternatives can I run on my own hardware or cluster? 9 listed.

Compare with other E2B alternatives

All 41

Docker vs E2B no comparable hourly price, microVM
Judge0 vs E2B no comparable hourly price, process sandbox
microsandbox vs E2B no comparable hourly price, microVM
OpenSandbox vs E2B no comparable hourly price, Firecracker microVM
Piston vs E2B no comparable hourly price, process sandbox

Get a quote from Agent and similar alternatives

Tell us what you need once. We send it to matching alternatives and they reply to you directly.