Northflank vs Islo

Both run each sandbox as a microVM with its own kernel. Northflank is a broad cloud platform with GPUs, many regions and your own cloud, while Islo is built only for coding agents, with a gateway that controls and logs every outbound call.

The companies and products

Northflank

Northflank is a London developer platform for running services, jobs and databases on Kubernetes, and Sandboxes is its product for running untrusted code.

A Northflank sandbox is a container image deployed as a service: CPU sandboxes run in Kata microVMs with their own kernel, and GPU sandboxes run under gVisor. You create and drive them from the JavaScript or Python SDK, the CLI or the dashboard, on Northflank's cloud or inside your own. It suits teams that already want one platform for apps, databases, GPUs and sandboxes.

Kind of product: Full developer platform (services, jobs, databases, GPUs) with sandboxes as one workload type
Isolation: CPU sandboxes in microVMs (Kata), GPU sandboxes under gVisor
Regions: US, Canada, Brazil, UK, EU, Switzerland, Asia, Australia and South Africa; fixed per project
Your own cloud: Run on AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave and others, or put the control plane in your VPC on Enterprise
GPUs: L4, A100, H100, RTX PRO 6000 and more, billed per hour
Compliance: SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA

Islo

Islo is an agent sandbox from Incredibuild: each coding agent gets its own microVM, with network rules and credentials handled at a gateway.

An Islo sandbox is a Linux microVM with its own kernel, built from a container image, with Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled. Outbound traffic can pass through a gateway that allows or blocks hosts, injects credentials and logs every request. It is built for teams that run coding agents, evals and RL rollouts in the background, on Islo's cloud or in their own cloud account.

Maker: Incredibuild, a build acceleration company based in Tel Aviv
Launched: May 4, 2026
Isolation: A microVM with its own kernel for each agent computer
Regions: US West on Islo's cloud; BYOC puts the control plane and sandboxes in your own cloud account
Billing: CPU per core, memory per GB and disk per GB while a sandbox runs, billed per hour; signup credits with no card
Compliance: No certification named on its site; compliance documents on request from support

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. “38th cheapest of 377” means 37 of the other 376 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	Northflank: price rank	Islo: price rank	bochka: price rank
Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A coding agent installs packages all over its machine: Northflank keeps only attached volumes on a pause, Islo keeps files and memory, and bochka keeps the whole disk and ranks 3rd.	159th of 367, with limits $1,477 a month	326th of 367, with limits $7,402 a month	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that waits between tasks suits Islo, which pauses it with memory and wakes it on the next request; Northflank bills until you pause it yourself.	173rd of 366, with limits $1,365 a month	30th cheapest of 366 $9,928 a month	5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month
Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month Short code runs on small machines fit Northflank best of the three, since its per-second plans start at a tenth of a vCPU; Northflank ranks 84th here.	84th of 345, with limits $115 a month	153rd of 345, with limits $503 a month	186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month
Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month 300 sandboxes for your users at once is past Islo's reported Team limit of 50 and not confirmed on Northflank; bochka ranks 1st with HTTPS on up to 50 ports per sandbox.	89th of 361, with limits $815 a month	171st of 361, with limits $3,160 a month	Cheapest of 361 $209 a month
RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month	342nd of 360, with limits $1,762 a month	167th of 360, with limits $15,265 a month	34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month
Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month	134th of 364, with limits $689 a month	198th of 364, with limits $2,456 a month	10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month
CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month All three fit; Northflank costs less than Islo here, and bochka adds /dev/kvm for Android emulators and VM builds.	38th cheapest of 377 $352 a month	119th cheapest of 377 $1,507 a month	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A box that stays on all month fully fits Islo, while on Northflank anything outside an attached volume resets when you pause it.	151st of 368, with limits $59 a month	112th cheapest of 368 $402 a month	18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month
Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Northflank and Islo sandboxes are both headless, so a computer-use agent needs a desktop you build yourself; bochka streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium.	151st of 369, with limits $371 a month	310th of 369, with limits $2,210 a month	6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month
Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month	200th of 367, with limits $194 a month	113th of 367, with limits $1,105 a month	7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month
Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month	196th of 346, with limits $117 a month	66th cheapest of 346 $748 a month	6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month
Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month	83rd of 338, with limits $2,049 a month	265th of 338, with limits $14,966 a month	71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month
Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month	141st of 360, with limits $99 a month	47th of 360, with limits $746 a month	2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month
GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month Northflank is the only one of the three with GPUs, from L4 to H100 and up; Islo and bochka are CPU only.	4th cheapest of 98 $693 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	Can't run it

Key features

Feature	Northflank	Islo	bochka
Isolation	Kata microVM with its own kernel for CPU; gVisor for GPU	A microVM with its own kernel for every sandbox	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts
What survives a pause	Only attached volumes, which bill while paused; the rest of the disk and all processes reset	Files, processes and memory	The whole disk, saved every minute and on stop; a resumed sandbox reboots from disk
Idle pause and wake	No idle auto-pause; a sandbox bills its plan until you pause it	Can pause after a set idle time (chosen at creation) and wake on the next exec, file access or webhook	A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its whole disk
Docker and nested virtualization	Docker inside; no /dev/kvm documented	Docker and sudo inside; no /dev/kvm or nested virtualization documented	Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine
Desktop and computer use	Headless; access by SDK, browser terminal or SSH	A browser inside for testing; no desktop or computer-use API	60fps Linux desktop, Chromium and a computer-use API, with an embeddable stream
Coding agents	Harnesses start Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode or Pi; you reach the agent through a terminal or SSH	Claude Code, Cursor CLI and Codex preinstalled; factory lines run agent steps with events and steer, on a schedule, webhook or GitHub, Slack and Linear events	Seven agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API
Keeping API keys out of the sandbox	Header injection for listed hosts in the network policy API; otherwise env vars or files	Gateway injects stored credentials into outbound requests for any host	Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API; switch a credential to another account when credits run out
Outbound rules	Network policies with allow lists by IP, CIDR or domain, documented for your own cluster	Gateway rules by host, path and HTTP method, default deny, rate limits, content filters and per-request logs	Open internet, no provider-side allowlist
Inbound access	HTTPS ports on a code.run domain, private by default; public TCP and UDP need a separate load balancer	HTTPS share links anyone with the URL can open, expiring after 24 hours by default; SSH and port-forward through the CLI; no raw TCP	HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP; dedicated IPv4 or IPv6
Sandboxes at once	Limit not published	Free 5 and Team 50 running sandboxes per launch coverage; more by contract	100 to 2,000 running sandboxes by plan, raised by adding seats
GPUs	L4, A100, H100, RTX PRO 6000 and more	No	No
Regions	US, Canada, Brazil, UK, EU, Switzerland, Asia, Australia and South Africa	US West	EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with EU data residency
Your own cloud	AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave and others, or the control plane in your VPC on Enterprise	BYOC puts the control plane and sandboxes in your own cloud account	No

Every feature Battleships tracks (43)

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

Performance

NorthflankNot measured

IsloNot measured

bochka26.69 runs/s

There is no comparable CPU measurement for Northflank or Islo: neither has a result on the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks test. On that test bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts.

Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Northflank and Islo have 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	Northflank, a month	Islo, a month	bochka, 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	$32 · Developer Sandbox (free tier) · with limits	$101 · Free	$20 · $20/mo
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$108 · Developer Sandbox (free tier) · with limits	$420 · Free	$26 · $20/mo
50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside	$1,322 · Developer Sandbox (free tier) · with limits	$4,863 · Team	$317 · $20/mo × 3 seats
Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once	$361 · Developer Sandbox (free tier) · with limits	$1,382 · Team · with limits	$200 · $100/mo × 2 seats
1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month	$688 · Developer Sandbox (free tier) · with limits	$3,053 · Team · with limits	$2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits

Northflank: Northflank bills per second for the plan size you pick, with no monthly fee, until you pause the sandbox. Volumes cost $0.15 per GB a month even while paused, and outbound traffic costs $0.06 per GB.

Islo: Islo bills each CPU core and each GB of memory and disk while a sandbox runs, billed per hour, with no plan fee. An idle sandbox keeps billing until its pause-after-idle timer fires, and egress has no published price.

Islo: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its whole disk.

Limits in those scenarios

On Northflank the limit that bites in every scenario is what survives a pause: only attached volumes keep their files, so packages installed anywhere else reset. Northflank does not publish how many sandboxes can run at once, and Islo's Team plan is reported at 50, so 300 sandboxes for your users or 1,000 short jobs at once do not fit Islo and are not confirmed on Northflank. bochka queues starts above 90 a minute, so the 1,000-job burst does not all start together.

Scenario	Northflank	Islo	bochka
One coding agent, workdays	files survive a stop only in attached volumes: packages installed elsewhere reset	egress price not published	None that bite
One agent that never stops	files survive a stop only in attached volumes: packages installed elsewhere reset	egress price not published	None that bite
50 agents in parallel	files survive a stop only in attached volumes: packages installed elsewhere reset how many machines can run at once: limit not published, probably fine at 50 (the typical published limit is 50)	egress price not published	None that bite
Sandboxes for your users	not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 300; the typical published limit is 50)	Team: max 50 concurrent egress price not published	None that bite
1,000 short jobs at once	not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 1,000; the typical published limit is 50)	Team: max 50 concurrent egress price not published	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)

Which one should you use?

Use Northflank when

you need GPUs next to the agent, regions outside the US and Europe, or sandboxes in your own cloud next to your apps and databases.

GPU sandboxes. For agents that train or run models: Northflank has GPU sandboxes from L4 to H100 and up, and Islo has none.
Regions around the world. For users far from the US West coast: Northflank also runs in Canada, Brazil, Europe, Asia, Australia and South Africa.
One platform for apps and sandboxes. For teams that also run services, jobs and databases: Northflank keeps them and the sandboxes on one platform, or in your cloud.

Use Islo when

you need per-host egress rules with a log of every outbound call, or coding agents that pause with memory and wake on the next request.

Egress rules and request logs. For teams that must control what agents reach: Islo allows or blocks each host, path and method, and logs every call.
Pause with memory, wake on request. For agents idle between tasks: Islo pauses them with files, processes and memory kept, and wakes them on the next request.
Agent runs from your tools. For teams automating coding agents: Islo factory lines start agent steps from a schedule, a webhook or GitHub, Slack and Linear events.

Where bochka fits

Northflank and Islo both give an agent a headless microVM. If your agents need to see a screen, boot an emulator or serve something others can reach, look at bochka: every sandbox is a full VM with a desktop, /dev/kvm and ports you can host on, and it keeps the whole disk when it stops.

A desktop agents can see and use

Northflank and Islo sandboxes are headless, so an agent that must check a UI or fill a form in a real app has no screen. On either you would build an image with a desktop, a browser and a way to stream it.

Emulators and VMs inside

Neither Northflank nor Islo documents /dev/kvm inside a sandbox, so Android emulators and tools that start their own VMs stop at the first boot. bochka has /dev/kvm, root and systemd on every machine.

Ports you can host on

On Northflank, public TCP or UDP needs a separate load balancer. Islo share links are public to anyone with the URL and expire after 24 hours by default. bochka serves up to 50 HTTPS ports with tokens, plus raw TCP.

Use bochka when your agents work on one machine for hours or days and need a desktop, /dev/kvm, Docker and ports you can host on, with the whole disk kept on every stop. Compare it one to one: bochka vs Northflank and bochka vs Islo.

Questions people ask

Is Northflank cheaper than Islo?

In every scenario we priced, yes: one agent that never stops is $108 on Northflank against $420 on Islo, and 50 agents in parallel are $1,322 against $4,863. But on Northflank only attached volumes keep their files when paused, so those totals do not fully fit an agent that installs packages. bochka comes to $26 and $317 a month for the same two.

Which is faster, Northflank or Islo?

We cannot say: neither has a result on the public CPU benchmark we use. bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second on it at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.

Can Northflank and Islo run Docker?

Yes. Both give each sandbox its own kernel in a microVM, and Docker runs inside. Neither documents /dev/kvm, which bochka has for Android emulators and VMs.

Does a sandbox keep its files when paused?

On Islo, yes: a pause keeps files, processes and memory. On Northflank only attached volumes survive, and the rest of the disk and all processes reset. bochka keeps the whole disk on every stop and reboots from it.

Do Northflank or Islo have GPUs?

Northflank does, with GPU sandboxes from L4 and A100 to H100 and more under gVisor. Islo and bochka run on CPUs only.

Where do Northflank and Islo run?

Northflank runs in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, the EU, Switzerland, Asia, Australia and South Africa, or in your own cloud. Islo runs in US West or in your own cloud account. bochka runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.

Try bochka

Install the CLI, then run bochka new.

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