Do E2B and Sandal use the same isolation model?

Both run Firecracker microVMs with a dedicated kernel per sandbox. The differences are the control plane, pause and fork semantics, billing, and the other surfaces Sandal puts behind the same SDK.

How do the prices compare for the same machine?

For a 4 vCPU / 8 GiB shape, E2B publishes $0.331 per hour and Sandal $0.036 per hour as of August 2026. Sandal also stops billing entirely while a sandbox is paused.

When should I stay on E2B?

If your workload is Linux-only and you value the template catalog, or if self-hosting or bring-your-own-cloud is a hard requirement. Sandal does not offer a self-hosted control plane.

Compare · Sandboxes

Sandal vs E2B

E2B has the largest template catalog and community in this category, and publishes its infrastructure under Apache 2.0. Sandal runs the same Firecracker isolation at roughly a tenth of the hourly rate, pauses to $0 between turns, and puts CI runners and mobile simulators behind the same SDK.

Start building See the migration

Reviewed August 2026 · 3 sources

$ / hr · 4 vCPU 8 GiB: 0.331E2B0.036Sandal
Paused sandbox: BetaE2B$0Sandal
Fork a running box: , E2BYesSandal
Surfaces on one SDK: LinuxE2BLinux · CI · mobileSandal

The honest split

Two good answers. Here is which one is yours.

Pick E2B if

Your workload is Linux-only and you want the deepest catalog of prebuilt templates and worked examples.
Running the control plane yourself, or bring-your-own-cloud, is a hard requirement this quarter.
Your team is already standardised on E2B templates and SDK conventions and it is working.

Pick Sandal if

You need the same API to also give the agent a CI runner, a desktop, or an iOS simulator.
Agents idle between turns and you refuse to pay wall-clock for a machine that is thinking.
Untrusted code needs its own kernel, default-deny egress and a key that dies with the machine.

Many teams run both. runs-on is per job and a sandbox is per task; nothing here is all or nothing.

Side by side

What each one actually ships.

Documented capability as of August 2026. Where the honest answer is a qualifier rather than yes or no, the qualifier is printed. Scroll sideways on a small screen.

E2B compared with Sandal, August 2026
Area	E2B	Sandal	Why it matters
Runtime
Start time	Around a second from a template.	Under 200 ms from a warm pool, under a second cold.	Per-request execution only stays cheap if the machine arrives before the model decides what to do with it.
Pause and resume	Pause and resume is in beta.	Pause to $0 with memory and open files intact; resume under 200 ms.	Agents spend most of a session waiting on a model. Idle time is where sandbox bills come from.
Fork a machine	No public evidence.	Branch a running box like a repo and keep the attempt that worked.	Trying two approaches in parallel is how agents explore; without forks you rebuild state from scratch.
Isolation
Runtime	Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, built from a template or snapshot.	Firecracker microVM with its own kernel; containers on the same fleet for one-shot code.	Both give untrusted code a kernel boundary instead of a shared one, this row is a tie.
Network policy	Configurable network policy per sandbox.	Default-deny egress; you list the hosts the code may reach. Secrets are injected at the edge.	A token written into the guest is a token the code can read.
Pricing
Billing	Per second while the sandbox is alive.	Per second while the machine runs; paused costs nothing.	Two per-second meters diverge the moment the agent stops to think.
Surfaces
Beyond Linux	Linux sandboxes and desktop sandboxes.	Linux, Windows and macOS machines, GitHub Actions runners, iOS and Android simulators, Xcode builds, one SDK, one invoice.	A team that needs CI and mobile alongside sandboxes otherwise buys three vendors.
Developer experience
Self-host / BYOC	Infrastructure published under Apache 2.0; BYOC on enterprise plans.	Not offered, and no date to give you.	If you must run it yourself, this row decides the comparison.
SDKs	TypeScript and Python.	TypeScript and Python, plus a CLI, REST API and MCP server. An E2B-shaped compat import.	Migration cost is measured in changed lines.

Sources · reviewed August 2026

Capabilities change and rates change. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it the same week.

Price

Same shape. Two meters.

Published rates, August 2026, same instance shape. E2B meters per second while the sandbox is alive; Sandal bills per second while the sandbox runs and a paused sandbox costs nothing.

E2B4 vCPU / 8 GiB: 0.331$ / hour
Sandal4 vCPU / 8 GiB · paused = $0: 0.036$ / hour

Price your own fleet The full rate card

One agent day on the published rates for the same shape: 5.8 hours of work in six bursts. E2B’s pause is in beta, so the model keeps the sandbox alive between turns.

Migration

One line changes.

A compatibility shim presents the SDK you already call. Change the import, keep the code, and run both vendors side by side until the numbers convince you.

agent.ts−1 +1one line changes

-import { Sandbox } from "e2b";

+import { Sandbox } from "@sandal/sdk/compat/e2b";

const sbx = await Sandbox.create({ template: "node-24" });

await sbx.commands.run("pnpm test");

const url = await sbx.getHost(3000);

await sbx.kill();

01≈ 1 min
Install the shim
npm install @sandal/sdk. The compat module presents the E2B Sandbox class you already call.
02≈ 5 min
Swap the import
Change one line. Create, commands, files, getHost and kill keep their shape; anything E2B-specific throws with a hint.
03≈ 1 afternoon
Run both, side by side
Point one workload at each vendor and compare start time, exit codes and the bill for the same day.

Where E2B is ahead

What we would rather you read here than find later.

A comparison page where the vendor wins every row is a brochure. These are real, and we would rather you land on the right tool than land on us and leave in a month.

01
The template ecosystem.
E2B has the deepest catalog of prebuilt templates and worked examples in the category. If Linux-only is the whole job, that is the fastest route from nothing to a running sandbox today.
02
Open infrastructure and BYOC.
E2B publishes its infrastructure under Apache 2.0 and offers bring-your-own-cloud on enterprise plans. We do not, and there is no date.

Before you switch

Questions teams ask before moving off E2B.

For the common surface, yes: the @sandal/sdk/compat/e2b module presents the E2B Sandbox class, so create, commands, files, host URLs and kill keep their shape. E2B-specific features throw with a migration hint rather than silently doing something else.

More comparisons

The rest of the field in sandboxes.

All comparisons and the full matrix →

Get started

Run the same job twice.

Point one workload at Sandal and one at E2B. The numbers on this page are ours; the ones that matter are yours.

Start building Read the docs

npm i @sandal/sdk

Sandal vs E2B

Two good answers. Here is which one is yours.

What each one actually ships.

Same shape. Two meters.

One line changes.

Install the shim

Swap the import

Run both, side by side

What we would rather you read here than find later.

The template ecosystem.

Open infrastructure and BYOC.

Questions teams ask before moving off E2B.

The rest of the field in sandboxes.

Run the same job twice.