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Guide

How to choose an agent sandbox: a buyer’s checklist

Answer in brief

Choose an agent sandbox by matching it to your workload first — session length, statefulness, GPU needs and data-residency rules — then compare isolation strength, cold start measured in your own region, persistence features, network controls, pricing at your real concurrency, SDK fit and exit options such as open source or self-hosting. Run a one-week pilot with your actual image before committing.

By the Agent Sandboxes editors · Updated

1. Define the workload

  • Session length: seconds (code interpreter), minutes (task agent), hours to days (coding or background agent)?
  • State: should files survive between sessions? Do you need pause/resume or forking?
  • Concurrency: how many sandboxes at peak? RL and evals can mean thousands.
  • Hardware: CPU-only, large memory, or GPUs?
  • Interface: shell and files only, or a desktop/browser for computer use?

2. Check the security model

  • Isolation technology (microVM, gVisor, containers) — see isolation compared.
  • Egress control: can you block the internet or allowlist domains per sandbox?
  • Secrets handling: can credentials be injected without exposing them to the agent?
  • Compliance attestations you need (SOC 2, HIPAA) and data-residency options, including BYOC.

3. Measure performance yourself

Vendor cold-start figures are measured under ideal conditions. Measure p50 and p95 time-to-first-command with your image, in your region, at your concurrency. Also measure time to install dependencies — snapshots or custom templates often matter more than raw boot time.

4. Model the cost

Most providers bill per second for vCPU and memory while a sandbox runs, sometimes with storage and network on top. Estimate: average session length × sessions per day × resources per sandbox. Then check what idle time costs — pause/resume or auto-stop can cut bills dramatically for long-lived agents. See pricing explained.

5. Developer experience and lock-in

  • Official SDKs in your language, plus an MCP server if your agent should manage sandboxes itself.
  • Custom images/templates from a Dockerfile.
  • Observability: logs, metrics, command history.
  • Exit options: is the platform open source or self-hostable? How hard is it to switch?

6. Run a short pilot

Shortlist two or three providers from the comparison, run the same agent task suite on each for a week, and compare reliability, latency, cost and how often the agent hit environment problems. Our best-for pages suggest shortlists by use case.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important factor?
Fit to the workload. A provider optimised for short-lived code interpreters may be a poor fit for days-long coding agents, and vice versa. After that, isolation strength and network controls matter most for security.
Should I build my own sandbox infrastructure?
Only if you have strict data-residency needs, very high volume, or platform engineers to operate it. Open-source projects lower the bar; see self-hosting.

Cite this page

Agent Sandboxes. (2026). How to choose an agent sandbox: a buyer’s checklist. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 8, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/guides/how-to-choose-an-agent-sandbox/

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