exe.dev
Persistent root VMs for people and their agents, driven entirely over SSH (or the same commands via HTTPS and MCP), with replicated NVMe storage, VM copies and flat-rate CPU/RAM pools in nine regions. A flat-rate fleet of persistent SSH-driven VMs for agent-assisted developers, rather than an SDK-driven sandbox API for high-volume automation.
Overview
exe.dev, from a small Bay Area team, is "lots of computers": persistent Linux VMs with root that you create and manage by SSHing to exe.dev (ssh exe.dev new), with the same commands available through a single HTTPS endpoint and a hosted MCP server so any agent can be given its own VMs. Each VM is a separate VMM process in a pool of CPU and RAM that your VMs share, with disks on local NVMe replicated within the region. Features include public or private HTTPS URLs for apps on a VM, VM copying, a two-mode egress policy, an LLM gateway that injects provider keys, Google Calendar and Gmail connections for agents, and S3-backed incremental backups in preview.
Pricing is a flat monthly pool rather than per sandbox: Personal plans from $15/month for 2 vCPU/4 GiB shared by up to 50 VMs, Work plans at $75/month per team with metered extra pool capacity, and standalone VMs with reserved resources at $0.105 per 2 vCPU/4 GiB hour. Nine regions span the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific, and Enterprise adds single-tenant hardware or BYOC into AWS or GCP. The hypervisor, compliance certifications and any SDKs beyond the SSH/HTTPS commands are not documented.
Notable
- Nine regions (US, Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore), with the Oregon region closed to new accounts
- Personal plan from $15/month for a 2 vCPU/4 GiB pool shared by up to 50 VMs
- VM backups to S3 are a development preview
exe.dev specifications
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Isolation | Each VM runs as its own VMM process inside a shared CPU/RAM pool; hypervisor not named |
| Deployment | Hosted platform · BYOC available |
| Open source | No |
| SDKs and interfaces | CLI (over SSH), HTTPS API, MCP server |
| Cold start (vendor claim) | API explorer: creating a VM takes "about a second" (vendor claim) |
| Max session length | VMs are long-lived and persistent with no session limit; stopped standalone VMs keep their disk |
| Persistence | Persistent VM disks on local NVMe, streamed to other machines in the regional cluster for durability; cp copies a VM's disk and config; S3 backups (development preview) with incremental 1 MB chunks and 7-day minimum retention; no memory snapshots documented |
| GPU | Not mentioned |
| Networking | Egress all by default or integrations (blocks the public internet, keeps metadata and attached integrations); public or private HTTPS app URLs via an SNI/Host-routed TLS proxy and global load balancer; SSH with public-key auth only; an LLM gateway adds provider keys outside the VM |
| Pricing | Personal: $15/month for a 2 vCPU/4 GiB pool, $35 (4/8), $75 (8/16), $155 (16/32), up to 50 VMs, 100 GiB disk, 200 GiB bandwidth. Work: $75/month per team ($37.50 for the first 3 months) including 2 vCPU/4 GiB, extra capacity $0.105 per 2 vCPU/4 GiB unit-hour, pools of 2-512 vCPUs, 1,000 VMs per pool. Standalone VMs metered per second at the same unit rate ($0.0525/h for 1 vCPU/2 GiB to $0.84/h for 16 vCPU/32 GiB). Enterprise custom with dedicated hardware and AWS/GCP VPC |
| Free tier | 7-day trial of the Personal plan, no card required when linking a paid ChatGPT subscription; no permanent free tier |
| Compliance | Not documented |
| Regions | Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, London (Oregon closed to new accounts); the account "lobby" server is in the United States |
Facts from exe.dev’s public documentation, verified November 9, 2026. Performance numbers are vendor claims.
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- You want many small persistent VMs for a flat monthly price rather than per-second metering
- You and your agents work over SSH and want the same commands via HTTPS or MCP
- You need regions in Asia-Pacific and Europe as well as the US
- You want app URLs and an LLM key gateway without running a proxy yourself
Trade-offs
- Hypervisor and compliance are not documented
- No language SDKs; the API is one POST endpoint wrapping SSH commands with a 30-second timeout and no stdin
- Egress control is a two-mode switch, not a host allow-list
- Memory snapshots and pause/resume are not documented
Good fit for: Developers who want a fleet of persistent root VMs they and their agents reach over SSH, at a flat monthly price.
How exe.dev compares
| Sandbox | Isolation | Open source | Self-host / BYOC | Cold start (vendor) | Max session | Snapshots / pause | GPU | SDKs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| exe.dev | VM (VMM per VM) | No | No / Yes | ~1 s (claim) | No cap | Yes / Not documented | Not documented | CLI (over SSH), HTTPS API, MCP server |
| boat | Full VM, own kernel | No | No / No | Not documented | No cap (auto-stop 1 h default) | Yes / Yes | No | Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, CLI, REST API |
| Upstash Box | Docker container | No | No / No | Not documented | No cap (idle pause 1 h / 6 h) | Yes / Yes | No | JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, CLI, MCP server |
| Fly.io Sprites | MicroVM | No | No / No | 0.1–2 s wake | Unlimited | Yes / Yes | No | JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, Python, Elixir |
| Freestyle | VM | No | No / Not documented | 65 ms | Unlimited (paid) | Yes / Yes | Not documented | TypeScript |
| Railway Sandboxes | Linux VM | No | No / No | Not documented | No cap (idle 30 min default) | Yes / No | Not documented | JavaScript/TypeScript, CLI, GraphQL API |
Frequently asked questions
What is exe.dev?
How does exe.dev isolate code?
Is exe.dev open source?
How much does exe.dev cost?
What are the alternatives to exe.dev?
Sources
Cite this page
Agent Sandboxes. (2026). exe.dev. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 9, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/sandboxes/exe-dev/
Found an error or a missing sandbox? Submit a correction — every entry links to the sources it relies on.