bochka vs E2B

Both give each agent its own small Linux machine. bochka gives it a faster, fuller machine that can run as long as you want, while E2B is strongest at short jobs that pause and resume with their memory intact.

Where bochka stands out

About twice as fast on CPU work

bochka runs on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. On the same Node.js build-and-test benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, bochka did 26.69 runs per second and E2B did 12.61. Builds, tests and installs finish sooner, so agents wait less.

A whole machine, for as long as you need

A bochka sandbox has no session cap on paid plans, while E2B stops at 24 hours on Pro. You also get nested virtualization for Android emulators and VMs, raw TCP, a dedicated IP, and machines up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB.

Agents and keys built in

Claude Code, Codex and five other agents come preinstalled, and you prompt, steer and follow them through one API. Real API keys stay outside the sandbox in a credentials proxy, and a credential can switch to another account when one runs out of credits.

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

E2B

E2B calls itself the AI agent cloud: an API that gives each agent session its own isolated Linux machine.

Every E2B sandbox is a Firecracker microVM that boots from a snapshot, so it starts fast and can be paused and resumed with its memory. You build custom sandboxes from templates based on a Docker image, and drive them from Python or JavaScript SDKs. It is built for teams that run many short code, data or agent jobs, and its runtime is open source.

Isolation: Firecracker microVM per sandbox
Regions: US by default; EU and APAC on Pro and above, enabled by support
Open source: Runtime published under Apache-2.0, can run on your own Linux host with KVM
Bring your own cloud: Enterprise data plane in your AWS, GCP or Azure account
Compliance: SOC 2 Type II; HIPAA BAA on request
Machine size: 1 to 8 vCPU and 1 to 8 GiB RAM, CPU only

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	E2B: price rank
Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both fit, but bochka has no 24-hour cap, nested virtualization for Android emulators, and runs builds about twice as fast on the CPU benchmark.	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month	16th cheapest of 367 $4,143 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that lives on its machine all month hits E2B's 24-hour session limit, so it has to pause and resume; bochka can simply keep running.	5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month	51st of 366, with limits $5,348 a month
Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month E2B is built for this: short code runs that start fast, pause with their memory and wake on the next request.	186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month	37th cheapest of 345 $421 a month
Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Both fit; E2B wakes a paused sandbox on the next request, while bochka gives each user a bigger, faster machine with hosting built in.	Cheapest of 361 $209 a month	23rd cheapest of 361 $2,354 a month
RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month E2B's memory forks and high start rate suit many short rollouts that branch from the same state.	34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month	2nd cheapest of 360 $9,384 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	78th cheapest of 364 $1,975 a month
CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month CI runners that build Android apps or VM images need nested virtualization, which bochka has and E2B does not, and faster CPUs shorten every job.	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month	337th of 377, with limits $1,429 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box that runs all month needs no session cap and a dedicated IP, which bochka has and E2B does not.	18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month	192nd of 368, with limits $358 a month
Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Both have a Linux desktop for computer use; bochka streams it at 60fps and can be embedded in your app.	6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month	32nd cheapest of 369 $1,342 a month
Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month	7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month	100th of 367, with limits $746 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	57th cheapest of 346 $554 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	227th of 338, with limits $9,223 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	11th cheapest of 360 $1,043 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	E2B
Isolation	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts	Firecracker microVM with its own kernel
CPU benchmark (4 vCPU / 8 GB)	26.69 runs/s	12.61 runs/s
Biggest machine	Up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on the $100 plan and above	Up to 8 vCPU / 8 GiB self-serve, more on request
Session length	No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live	Up to 1 hour on Hobby, 24 hours on Pro; pausing resets the clock
Pause and resume	Disk is saved every minute and on stop; resume boots the machine again	Saves memory and disk; resume takes about 1 second with processes still running
Fork	Fork a running sandbox with its disk	Fork a running sandbox with its memory, up to 20 copies per call, with a short pause
Wake on request	No; a stopped sandbox is started by API	Yes; a paused sandbox can resume on the next HTTP request or SDK call
Nested virtualization	Yes, /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs	Not supported
Inbound access	HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6	HTTPS URL per port, public by default unless you turn on a token; no dedicated IP
Outbound rules	Open internet, no provider-side allowlist	Allow and deny lists by IP, CIDR or domain
Coding agents	Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API	Templates and guides for many agents, run through the command API
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 injected into outbound HTTPS headers (private beta)
Regions	EU only (Germany, Finland, France)	US, EU and APAC
Self-hosting	No	Open-source runtime, plus bring your own cloud on Enterprise
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	E2B
Full VM (own kernel)	Yes	Yes
Docker inside	Yes	Yes
Nested virtualization	Yes	No
Root	Yes	Yes
Systemd	Yes	Yes
Desktop GUI	Yes	Yes
Browser	Yes	Yes
Computer-use API	Yes	Yes
SSH	Yes	Yes
Persistent disk	Yes	Yes
Pause/resume	Yes	Yes
Automatic snapshots	Yes	Yes
Fork/clone	Yes	Yes
Live fork (no pause)	Yes	Yes
Memory fork	No	Yes
Custom image (Docker or snapshot)	Yes	Yes
≥24 h sessions	Yes	Yes
Idle auto-stop	No	Yes
Wake on request	No	Yes
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	Yes
GPU	No	No
Windows	No	No
Arm64	No	No
Self-hosting	No	Yes
BYOC	No	Yes
Open source	No	Yes
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

E2B12.61 runs/s

Both were measured on the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, in the same run. bochka did 26.69 runs per second and E2B did 12.61, so bochka finished about twice as much CPU work in the same time. This measures CPU speed only, not start time.

Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite.

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	E2B, 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	$202 · Pro
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$26 · $20/mo	$368 · Pro · 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	$2,773 · Pro
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	$1,395 · Pro+ (600 concurrent)
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	$2,797 · Pro++ (1,100 concurrent)

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.

E2B: E2B bills per second for the vCPU and RAM you set, idle time included, until you pause or kill the sandbox. Pro costs $150 a month for higher limits, with no usage credit, and more concurrency costs $500 a month per 500 slots.

Limits in those scenarios

E2B caps a session at 24 hours on Pro, so an agent that runs all month has to pause and resume, which is why it does not fit the always-on scenario. E2B's Pro plan includes 20 GiB of disk and machines up to 8 GiB of RAM. bochka has no session cap, but its start limits are lower: at 1,000 short jobs at once, the $2,000 plan caps starts per hour and per day, while E2B Pro++ only queues bursts above 300 starts a minute.

Scenario	bochka	E2B
One coding agent, workdays	None that bite	disk beyond 20 GiB: price unknown egress price not published
One agent that never stops	None that bite	Pro: sessions capped at 24 h disk beyond 20 GiB: price unknown egress price not published
50 agents in parallel	None that bite	egress price not published
Sandboxes for your users	None that bite	egress price not published
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)	egress price not published bursts above 300 starts/min are queued (a burst of 333 takes ~2 min to start)

Which one should you use?

Use E2B when

you run very large numbers of short jobs that pause between requests, or must run in the US or APAC.

Memory pause and wake on request. Useful for short jobs that sleep between requests: a paused sandbox comes back in about a second with its processes running.
Outbound rules and more regions. E2B can limit which hosts a sandbox reaches, and it runs in the US and APAC as well as the EU.
Open source and your own cloud. Its runtime is Apache-2.0, and Enterprise customers can run it in their own AWS, GCP or Azure account.

Use bochka when

your agents do real work for hours: installs, builds, tests, Docker, emulators and a browser, on a fast machine that never cuts them off.

About twice as fast on CPU work. Agents spend most of their time waiting on installs, builds and tests. At half the speed every one of those waits doubles, and so does the time you pay for.
A whole machine, for as long as you need. On E2B a long task hits the 24-hour cap and has to be paused and resumed by your code, and Android emulators or VMs can't start at all without nested virtualization.
Agents and keys built in. Without them you build the agent harness yourself, and the real API keys sit inside a machine the agent controls, where one prompt injection can leak them.

Questions people ask

Is bochka cheaper than E2B?

bochka costs less in all five scenarios on this page, by a wide margin. For 1,000 short jobs at once, bochka is still cheaper but its start limits make it a poor fit, so E2B Pro++ suits that one better.

Is bochka faster than E2B?

On the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks CPU test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, bochka did 26.69 runs per second and E2B did 12.61. That is about twice the CPU work in the same time.

Can bochka pause a sandbox with its memory like E2B?

No. bochka saves the disk every minute and when the sandbox stops, so files survive, but resuming boots the machine again. E2B can pause with memory and resume running processes in about a second.

Can an E2B sandbox run for days?

Not in one session. E2B stops a sandbox after 24 hours on Pro and 1 hour on Hobby, though pausing and resuming resets the clock. bochka has no session cap on paid plans.

Can I run Docker and Android emulators in each?

Both run Docker inside the sandbox. bochka also exposes /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VMs, while E2B's docs say nested virtualization is not supported.

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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