ToolsAugust 27, 2026via MarkTechPost
Best Agent Sandboxes in 2026: Cold Start, Per-Second Pricing, and Network Policy Across E2B, Daytona, Modal, Cloudflare, and Vercel
Why it matters
As code-executing agents move into production, sandbox infrastructure choice directly impacts operating costs and latency. This vendor comparison normalizes opaque pricing models and cold-start performance across five major platforms, giving practitioners a decision framework for sandbox selection.
Key signals
- Five platforms compared: E2B, Daytona, Modal, Cloudflare, Vercel
- Metrics: burst cold start, per-second pricing normalized to cost per 1,000 executions, filesystem persistence, idle billing, egress policy
- Primary sources verified August 27, 2026
- Addresses vendor pricing opacity—no two quote the same units
- Filesystem persistence and idle billing are material cost drivers
The hook
Agent sandbox pricing is a hidden cost lever. E2B, Daytona, Modal, Cloudflare, and Vercel all quote differently—here's how to normalize cold start and per-second rates to actual cost per 1,000 executions.
Every agent that writes code needs somewhere to run it, and no two vendors quote the same units. This comparison measures burst cold start across E2B, Daytona, Modal, Cloudflare, and Vercel, normalizes per-second rates to cost per 1,000 executions, and maps filesystem persistence, idle billing, and …