Freestyle vs E2B
Choose Freestyle for long-running coding agents that need full VMs — Docker, nested virtualization — with fork and hibernate; choose E2B for code interpreters and short-to-medium-lived agent tasks that need microVM isolation, with an open-source self-host path. Freestyle uses VM isolation; E2B uses Firecracker microVM isolation and is open source.
Freestyle vs E2B at a glance
| Attribute | Freestyle | E2B |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Full Linux VMs for AI agents with live forking of running VMs, memory-preserving hibernation, VPCs and nested virtualization. | Open-source cloud sandboxes for AI agents, each a Firecracker microVM, with pause/resume, snapshots and forking. |
| Isolation | Full Linux VMs with hardware virtualization on Freestyle’s own bare metal; supports nested virtualization, FUSE and eBPF | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel per sandbox |
| Open source | No | Yes (Apache-2.0) |
| Self-host / BYOC | No / Not documented | Yes / Yes |
| SDKs | TypeScript | Python, JavaScript/TypeScript |
| Cold start (vendor claim) | Ready in 65 ms from API request; p99 under 400 ms; resume under 100 ms (vendor claims) | Not documented |
| Max session | Can run indefinitely with idle timeout disabled (paid plans) | Up to 1 hour continuous (Hobby), 24 hours (Pro) or custom (Enterprise); pausing resets the clock and paused sandboxes are kept until deleted |
| Persistence | Live forking of running VMs including memory; hibernate with memory preserved; snapshots | Pause/resume preserves filesystem and memory; snapshots of running sandboxes, forking from a snapshot, filesystem-only snapshots, auto-resume and volumes (beta) |
| GPU | Not documented | No — sandboxes are CPU-only |
| Networking | Default-deny network access with per-VM rules; VPCs, firewall, WireGuard/Tailscale tunnels; custom-domain previews with HTTPS | 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 |
| Pricing | $0.04032 per vCPU-hour + $0.0129 per GiB-hour; Hobby $50/month and Pro $500/month credited against usage | 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 |
| Compliance | Not documented | SOC 2 Type II; HIPAA BAA and DPA available on request |
| Best for | Long-running coding agents that need full VMs — Docker, nested virtualization — with fork and hibernate | Code interpreters and short-to-medium-lived agent tasks that need microVM isolation, with an open-source self-host path |
Verified November 8, 2026 from each provider’s documentation. Cold-start figures are vendor claims, not our measurements.
Which should you choose?
Choose Freestyle if…
- Your agent needs Docker, nested virtualization or kernel features
- You want to fork a running VM including memory
- You want default-deny networking and VPCs
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
Both are worth piloting with your own image and region. See the full Freestyle profile and E2B profile, or the complete comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Is Freestyle or E2B better for AI agents?
Which is open source, Freestyle or E2B?
How do Freestyle and E2B isolate code?
Sources
Cite this page
Agent Sandboxes. (2026). Freestyle vs E2B. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 8, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/compare/freestyle-vs-e2b/
Found an error or a missing sandbox? Submit a correction — every entry links to the sources it relies on.