E2B vs Daytona
Answer in brief
Choose E2B for code interpreters and short-to-medium-lived agent tasks that need microVM isolation, with an open-source self-host path; choose Daytona for long-lived, stateful agent workspaces that need many SDK languages, GPUs, or Windows and macOS sandboxes. E2B uses Firecracker microVM isolation and is open source; Daytona uses Containers or VMs isolation.
E2B vs Daytona at a glance
| Attribute | E2B | Daytona |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source cloud sandboxes for AI agents, each a Firecracker microVM, with pause/resume, snapshots and forking. | Stateful sandboxes for AI-generated code — Linux containers, Linux and Windows VMs, macOS and GPU sandboxes — with snapshots, volumes and preview URLs. |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel per sandbox | Isolated Linux containers (dedicated namespaces, resource limits) by default; VM sandboxes (Linux, Windows) run a full VM with their own kernel; GPU sandboxes are containers with exclusive GPU allocation |
| Open source | Yes (Apache-2.0) | No (Former public repo archived (AGPL-3.0)) |
| Self-host / BYOC | Yes / Yes | Not documented / Yes |
| SDKs | Python, JavaScript/TypeScript | Python, TypeScript, Ruby, Go, Java |
| Cold start (vendor claim) | Not documented | Sub-90 ms sandbox creation (vendor claim) |
| Max session | Up to 1 hour continuous (Hobby), 24 hours (Pro) or custom (Enterprise); pausing resets the clock and paused sandboxes are kept until deleted | No hard maximum: auto-stop after 15 min idle by default (can be disabled), auto-archive after 7 days stopped, optional wall-clock TTL |
| Persistence | Pause/resume preserves filesystem and memory; snapshots of running sandboxes, forking from a snapshot, filesystem-only snapshots, auto-resume and volumes (beta) | Stateful sandboxes, snapshots, shared volumes, archive/recover and stop/start with state. Pause/resume, fork and hot snapshots on VM sandboxes |
| GPU | No — sandboxes are CPU-only | Yes — up to 8 GPUs per sandbox (e.g. H100 from $2.27/hour, B200 $3.59/hour, preemptible list rates) |
| Networking | Internet on by default; can be disabled or restricted with allow/deny lists of IPs, CIDRs and domains; public sandbox URLs for exposed ports; custom domains and published egress IPs | Tiered egress: per-sandbox CIDR and domain allowlists or block-all, changeable at runtime; preview URLs for any port with token or signed URLs; SSH, VNC and web terminal |
| Pricing | Per second: $0.000014 per vCPU-second (~$0.050/vCPU-hour) + $0.0000045 per GiB-second (~$0.016/GiB-hour). Pro plan $150/month plus usage; Enterprise from $3,000/month | Per second: $0.0504 per vCPU-hour + $0.0162 per GiB-hour; storage $0.000108/GiB-hour after 5 GiB free; Windows $0.0858/vCPU-hour |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II; HIPAA BAA and DPA available on request | States HIPAA, SOC 2 and GDPR compliance (Trust Center) |
| Best for | Code interpreters and short-to-medium-lived agent tasks that need microVM isolation, with an open-source self-host path | Long-lived, stateful agent workspaces that need many SDK languages, GPUs, or Windows and macOS sandboxes |
Verified November 8, 2026 from each provider’s documentation. Cold-start figures are vendor claims, not our measurements.
Which should you choose?
Choose E2B if…
- You want the most widely integrated agent sandbox, with a large ecosystem of examples
- You need Firecracker microVM isolation for untrusted multi-tenant code
- You want an open-source codebase you can self-host or run via BYOC
- You want ready-made code-interpreter and desktop SDKs
Choose Daytona if…
- You need long-lived, stateful workspaces that survive between sessions
- You want SDKs beyond Python and TypeScript (Ruby, Go, Java)
- You need GPUs, Windows or macOS sandboxes from the same provider
- You want BYOC on your own compute
Both are worth piloting with your own image and region. See the full E2B profile and Daytona profile, or the complete comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Is E2B or Daytona better for AI agents?
Neither is better for every workload. E2B is best for code interpreters and short-to-medium-lived agent tasks that need microVM isolation, with an open-source self-host path. Daytona is best for long-lived, stateful agent workspaces that need many SDK languages, GPUs, or Windows and macOS sandboxes.
Which is open source, E2B or Daytona?
E2B is open source (Apache-2.0); Daytona is not.
How do E2B and Daytona isolate code?
E2B: Firecracker microVM with its own kernel per sandbox. Daytona: Isolated Linux containers (dedicated namespaces, resource limits) by default; VM sandboxes (Linux, Windows) run a full VM with their own kernel; GPU sandboxes are containers with exclusive GPU allocation.
Sources
Cite this page
Agent Sandboxes. (2026). E2B vs Daytona. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 8, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/compare/e2b-vs-daytona/
Found an error or a missing sandbox? Submit a correction — every entry links to the sources it relies on.