bochka vs Deno Sandbox

Both give code its own Linux microVM. Deno Sandbox is built for short, locked-down runs that start in under 200 ms, while bochka gives an agent a bigger machine it can keep for hours or weeks, with Docker, a desktop and coding agents built in.

Where bochka stands out

A machine that stays

A bochka sandbox has no lifetime cap on paid plans, and its whole disk is saved every minute and when it stops. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and starts again with every file in place, and you can fork a running one. A Deno sandbox lives up to 30 minutes and its root disk is wiped when it ends.

A bigger, fuller machine

bochka starts at 4 vCPU / 8 GB and goes up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB, with Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs. Deno Sandbox is fixed at 2 vCPU with up to 4 GB of memory and a 10 GB disk.

Agents, desktop and browser built in

Claude Code, Codex and five other agents come preinstalled, and you prompt, steer and follow them from outside through one API. Each sandbox also has a Linux desktop streamed at 60fps with Chromium, ready for computer use.

The companies and products

bochka

bochka.xyz runs sandboxes for AI agents: each one is a full Linux VM with its own kernel.

You start a machine with one command or one API call, then SSH in, run Docker, open a desktop, or let a built-in agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others) work in it. The disk stays between sessions, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.

Isolation: Full VM per sandbox, own kernel
Hardware: Dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts
Regions: EU: Germany, Finland, France
Plans: From $20 a month, all of it usage credit, 7-day trial

Deno Sandbox

Deno Sandbox is part of Deno Deploy, the hosting platform from the company behind the Deno runtime, and runs untrusted or AI-generated code in Linux microVMs.

Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with 2 vCPU, up to 4 GB of memory and a 10 GB disk that is wiped when it ends, created from a TypeScript or Python SDK. Outbound traffic goes through a proxy that can enforce a host allowlist and swap placeholder secrets for real ones. It is built for short runs of agent or user code, and a sandbox can be promoted to a Deno Deploy app.

Isolation: Firecracker microVM per sandbox
Machine size: 2 vCPU, 768 MB to 4 GB memory, 10 GB ephemeral disk
Lifetime: Bound to a session, up to 30 minutes
Regions: Amsterdam and Chicago; volumes only in Chicago
Plans: Sandboxes on Pro and Builder; 3 or 20 at once per region
Compliance: Deno Deploy states SOC2 and ISO27001; HIPAA BAA for enterprise contracts

Which use cases each one fits

For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “3rd cheapest of 367” means 2 of the other 366 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.

Use case and its workload	bochka: price rank	Deno Sandbox: price rank
Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory runs installs, builds and Docker for hours, which outlasts Deno's 30-minute lifetime and its 2 vCPU shape.	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month	290th of 367, with limits $5,665 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that lives on its machine all month needs a machine that stays up, and a Deno sandbox ends after 30 minutes and wipes its disk.	5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month	287th of 366, with limits $5,803 a month
Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month Deno Sandbox suits this well: it starts in under 200 ms and bills CPU only while code is running.	186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month	141st of 345, with limits $329 a month
Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Both can give each user a sandbox; Deno caps Builder at 20 at once per region, while bochka's plans go to hundreds and hosting is token-protected by default.	Cheapest of 361 $209 a month	148th of 361, with limits $1,863 a month
RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month	34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month	122nd of 360, with limits $7,963 a month
Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month	10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month	296th of 364, with limits $1,563 a month
CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month CI jobs that run Docker or Android emulators need Docker and /dev/kvm, which bochka documents and Deno does not.	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month	304th of 377, with limits $731 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box that stays on all month needs no lifetime cap and a disk that persists, which is how bochka works by default.	18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month	179th of 368, with limits $200 a month
Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month bochka has a Linux desktop streamed at 60fps with Chromium for computer use; Deno Sandbox has no desktop.	6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month	280th of 369, with limits $1,583 a month
Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month bochka ships Chromium on a desktop in each sandbox, while on Deno you would install and run a headless browser yourself in 4 GB of memory.	7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month	284th of 367, with limits $783 a month
Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month	6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month	286th of 346, with limits $573 a month
Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month	71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month	247th of 338, with limits $11,923 a month
Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month	2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month	251st of 360, with limits $367 a month
GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month	Can't run it	Can't run it
macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month	Can't run it	Can't run it

Key features

Feature	bochka	Deno Sandbox
Isolation	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts	Firecracker microVM with its own kernel
Machine size	4 vCPU / 8 GB by default, up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above	2 vCPU fixed, 768 MB to 4 GB memory, 10 GB disk
Session length	No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live	Up to 30 minutes; longer work can be promoted to a Deno Deploy app
Disk that persists	The whole disk is kept, saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing	Root disk wiped when the sandbox ends; opt-in volumes of 300 MB to 20 GB, Chicago only
Snapshots and fork	Automatic disk snapshots; fork a running sandbox with its disk	Read-only snapshots of a volume that many new sandboxes can boot from; no fork of a running sandbox
Docker and nested virtualization	Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs	Root access; Docker and nested virtualization not documented
Desktop and browser	Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, Chromium and computer use built in	No desktop; a VS Code editor in the browser and SSH
Inbound access	HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP	HTTPS URL per exposed port, public without authentication; SSH
Outbound rules	Open internet, no provider-side allowlist	Host allowlist per sandbox (allowNet), enforced by a proxy outside the VM
Keeping API keys out of the sandbox	Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out	Secrets swapped in on outbound requests to approved hosts; the sandbox only sees a placeholder
Coding agents	Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API	A root image with Claude Code, run through the shell command API
Start time	Boots a full VM	Under 200 ms
Regions	EU only (Germany, Finland, France)	Amsterdam and Chicago
Compliance and transparency	SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status and data retention policy.	SOC 2

Every feature Battleships tracks (43)

Feature	bochka	Deno Sandbox
Full VM (own kernel)	Yes	Yes
Docker inside	Yes	Not published
Nested virtualization	Yes	No
Root	Yes	Yes
Systemd	Yes	Not published
Desktop GUI	Yes	No
Browser	Yes	No
Computer-use API	Yes	No
SSH	Yes	Yes
Persistent disk	Yes	Yes
Pause/resume	Yes	No
Automatic snapshots	Yes	No
Fork/clone	Yes	No
Live fork (no pause)	Yes	No
Memory fork	No	No
Custom image (Docker or snapshot)	Yes	Yes
≥24 h sessions	Yes	No
Idle auto-stop	No	No
Wake on request	No	No
HTTPS preview URLs	Yes	Yes
Raw TCP inbound	Yes	No
Public IPv4	No	No
Egress allowlist	No	Yes
Secret proxy	Yes	Yes
Secret proxy for any API	Yes	Yes
Preinstalled agents	Yes	Yes
Agent harness API	Yes	No
MCP server	No	No
GPU	No	No
Windows	No	No
Arm64	No	No
Self-hosting	No	No
BYOC	No	No
Open source	No	No
Scoped API keys	Yes	Not published
Spend limits	Yes	Yes
Usage per sandbox (API)	Yes	No
Audit logs	No	Not published
SSO	No	No
SOC 2	No	Yes
HIPAA	No	Yes
EU data residency	Yes	Yes
Zero data retention	Yes	Not published

Performance

bochka26.69 runs/s

Deno SandboxNot measured

There is no comparable measurement. bochka did 26.69 runs per second on the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, but Deno Sandbox is not in that benchmark, and its fixed 2 vCPU shape could not run the 4 vCPU test as set up.

Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Deno Sandbox has no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.

Pricing in five scenarios

Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.

Scenario	bochka, a month	Deno Sandbox, a month
One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days	$20 · $20/mo	$53 · Pro · with limits
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$26 · $20/mo	$200 · Builder · with limits
50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside	$317 · $20/mo × 3 seats	$2,779 · Builder · with limits
Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once	$200 · $100/mo × 2 seats	$783 · Builder · with limits
1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month	$2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits	$1,563 · Builder · with limits

bochka: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit. You pay per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.

Deno Sandbox: Sandboxes need the Pro plan at $20 a month or Builder at $200 a month; the fee is not credit but includes CPU, memory and egress allowances shared with your Deno Deploy apps. Past those, CPU costs $0.10 per hour of active CPU time and memory $0.025 per GiB-hour for the whole life of the sandbox.

Limits in those scenarios

Deno Sandbox fits none of the five scenarios as written. A sandbox lives up to 30 minutes and is fixed at 2 vCPU with up to 4 GB of memory, so the workday agent and the always-on agent cannot run as one machine, and Builder allows 20 sandboxes at once per region, which is short of 50 agents. bochka fits four of the five; at 1,000 short jobs at once its top plan queues starts above 90 a minute and allows 2,400 starts a day, so neither product fits that one without a custom plan.

Scenario	bochka	Deno Sandbox
One coding agent, workdays	None that bite	Pro: sessions capped at 0.5 h capped at 2 vCPU / 4 GiB largest size is 2 vCPU / 4 GiB disk beyond 10 GiB: price unknown
One agent that never stops	None that bite	Builder: sessions capped at 0.5 h capped at 2 vCPU / 4 GiB largest size is 2 vCPU / 4 GiB disk beyond 10 GiB: price unknown
50 agents in parallel	None that bite	Builder: max 20 concurrent Builder: sessions capped at 0.5 h capped at 2 vCPU / 4 GiB largest size is 2 vCPU / 4 GiB
Sandboxes for your users	None that bite	Builder: max 20 concurrent
1,000 short jobs at once	max 2,400 starts/day (needs ~6,667) max 600 starts/hour (needs ~1,000) bursts above 90 starts/min are queued (a burst of 333 takes ~4 min to start)	Builder: max 20 concurrent

Which one should you use?

Use Deno Sandbox when

you run short pieces of untrusted code that must start in milliseconds, reach only the hosts you allow, or run in the US, especially if you already deploy on Deno Deploy.

Locked-down outbound traffic. Useful for running untrusted code: each sandbox can be limited to a list of hosts, enforced by a proxy outside the VM.
Fast starts and active-CPU billing. Good for short bursts of code: a sandbox starts in under 200 ms and CPU bills only while code runs.
A US region and a path to Deno Deploy. Fits teams on Deno Deploy who need a US region: sandboxes run in Chicago or Amsterdam and can become Deploy apps.

Use bochka when

your agents do real work for more than a few minutes: installs, builds, tests, Docker, emulators and a browser, on a bigger machine whose disk is still there tomorrow.

A machine that stays. An agent task that runs past 30 minutes on Deno is cut off, and anything outside a mounted volume is lost, so your code has to split the work and rebuild the environment each time.
A bigger, fuller machine. Builds, test suites and Docker images that need more than 2 vCPU and 4 GB either crawl or run out of memory, and an emulator cannot start without nested virtualization.
Agents, desktop and browser built in. On Deno you run Claude Code through shell commands and parse its output yourself, and there is no desktop or browser for an agent that needs to see and click a page.

Questions people ask

Is bochka cheaper than Deno Sandbox?

In four of the five scenarios on this page, yes, by a wide margin, and Deno Sandbox does not fit any of them as written. For 1,000 short jobs at once Deno Builder comes to $1,563 a month against $2,000 for bochka, but neither fits that burst without a custom plan.

How long can a Deno sandbox run?

Deno's docs say a sandbox's lifetime is bound to a session, up to 30 minutes, and you can promote one to a Deno Deploy app for longer work. A bochka sandbox has no lifetime cap on paid plans.

Does a Deno sandbox keep its files?

Not by default: the root disk is wiped when the sandbox ends. You can mount a volume of 300 MB to 20 GB, available only in Chicago, to keep data. bochka keeps the whole disk, saves it every minute and on stop, and charges nothing while it is stopped.

Can I run Docker in Deno Sandbox?

Deno's docs do not say Docker works inside a sandbox, and they do not mention nested virtualization. bochka runs Docker and systemd and exposes /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs.

Can both keep API keys out of the sandbox?

Yes. Deno swaps placeholder secrets for real ones on requests to approved hosts, and bochka's credentials proxy does the same for model providers and any HTTPS API. bochka can also switch a credential to another account of the same kind when one runs out of credits.

Is bochka SOC 2 compliant?

SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status at status.bochka.xyz and our data retention policy at docs.bochka.xyz/data-retention.

Start a sandbox

Install the CLI, then run bochka new.

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