SWE-ReX alternatives
The 6 alternatives below are grouped by kind of sandbox, and each says what it does differently from SWE-ReX. Start from whatever made you look: missing GPUs, session limits, self-hosting, pricing or isolation.
Why teams look beyond SWE-ReX
A thin, backend-agnostic shell runtime that is most useful when the goal is parallel coding-agent evaluation rather than a hosted sandbox.
- Isolation is whatever the chosen backend provides; LocalDeployment has none
- No snapshots, persistence or network policy documented
- No stated release status; oriented towards research evaluation workflows
SWE-ReX alternatives, by kind
Hosted sandbox platforms
SDK-driven sandboxes you create, run code in and destroy through an API.
Daytona
Stateful sandboxes for AI-generated code — Linux containers, Linux and Windows VMs, macOS and GPU sandboxes — with snapshots, volumes and preview URLs.
- Containers or VMs
- BYOC
- GPU
- Pause/resume
How it differs: Long-lived, stateful agent workspaces that need many SDK languages, GPUs, or Windows and macOS sandboxes. The strongest choice for stateful coding-agent workspaces and breadth of sandbox types; note the shift away from open source.
Compute platforms with sandboxes
General serverless or app platforms that also offer sandboxes, often with GPUs.
Modal Sandboxes
Sandboxes on Modal’s serverless compute platform for running untrusted code at very high scale, with GPUs, snapshots and tunnels.
- gVisor or VM
- GPU
- Pause/resume
How it differs: High-concurrency and GPU-backed sandboxes — RL rollouts, evals and coding agents at scale. The best fit when scale or GPUs matter most, especially for teams already on Modal.
Prime Sandboxes
Disposable, hardware-isolated microVMs that boot OCI images with Docker inside, built for agentic RL rollouts at the scale of thousands of concurrent sandboxes.
- microVM, own kernel
- Pause/resume
How it differs: RL environment rollouts and agent evaluations that need thousands of Docker-capable microVMs at low hourly cost. A low-cost, RL-oriented microVM sandbox with strong networking and checkpoint features, best for Python-centric teams running rollouts at scale.
Open-source runtimes to self-host
Open-source sandbox runtimes you run on your own servers or Kubernetes.
LLM Sandbox
Python library that runs model-generated code through one API on Docker, Podman or Kubernetes, with Bubblewrap/nsjail local backends and an MCP server.
- Docker/Podman/K8s container
- Open source
- Self-hostable
How it differs: Python applications that need to run model-generated code in whatever container runtime they already have. A convenient backend-agnostic wrapper for teams that already run containers and want a Python-first code-execution layer.
OpenHands Runtime
The sandbox layer of the OpenHands agent SDK: an agent server that runs in a Docker container, in-process locally, or on the hosted OpenHands Runtime API.
- Docker container
- Open source
- Self-hostable
How it differs: Running OpenHands agents in disposable Docker sandboxes, locally or in CI, with the same server reachable through a hosted runtime for large evaluations. The right sandbox layer if you are already building on the OpenHands SDK; elsewhere a general container or microVM sandbox is simpler.
Local sandboxes for coding agents
Isolation for agents like Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI on your own laptop.
Docker Sandboxes
Docker’s `sbx` CLI for running AI coding agents in microVM sandboxes on your machine, with an experimental Docker-hosted cloud.
- MicroVM
- Self-hostable
- GPU
- Pause/resume
How it differs: Running coding agents unsupervised on a laptop with microVM isolation. The easiest way to give local coding agents a real microVM boundary.
SWE-ReX vs alternatives
| Sandbox | Isolation | Open source | Self-host / BYOC | Cold start (vendor) | Max session | Snapshots / pause | GPU | SDKs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-ReX | Docker / Modal / Fargate | Yes | Yes / No | Not documented | Not documented | No / Not documented | Not documented | Python, REST API |
| Daytona | Containers or VMs | No | Not documented / Yes | <90 ms | Unlimited | Yes / Yes | Yes | Python, TypeScript, Ruby, Go, Java |
| Docker Sandboxes | MicroVM | No | Yes / No | Not documented | Until removed (local) | Yes / Yes | Yes | sbx CLI, TypeScript (cloud), REST API (cloud) |
| LLM Sandbox | Docker/Podman/K8s container | Yes | Yes / No | Not documented | Not documented | No / Not documented | Not documented | Python, MCP server |
| Modal Sandboxes | gVisor or VM | No | No / Not documented | <1 s | Up to 24 h | Yes / Yes | Yes | Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go |
| OpenHands Runtime | Docker container | Yes | Yes / No | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented / Not documented | Not documented | Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, REST API |
| Prime Sandboxes | microVM, own kernel | No | No / No | Not documented | 60 min default, unlimited | Yes / Yes | No | Python, CLI, REST API |
Frequently asked questions
What are the main alternatives to SWE-ReX?
Is there an open-source alternative to SWE-ReX?
Cite this page
Agent Sandboxes. (2026). SWE-ReX alternatives. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 9, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/alternatives/swe-rex/
Found an error or a missing sandbox? Submit a correction — every entry links to the sources it relies on.