The sandbox has become the agent's desk. Coding and research agents now run tasks that span hours, or even days, and investors are now funding clouds built only for AI agents to give them somewhere to work.
Archil comes at that market from storage: sandboxes and durable disks that keep an agent's files between calls. The best Archil alternatives are Solari, E2B, Daytona, Modal and Blaxel. Solari is the pick when your agent needs fast sandboxes, cloud browsers and desktops from one account; this guide covers what each one does, what it costs and who it fits.
Why Look for an Archil Alternative?
Teams look past Archil when the agent's job grows beyond files. Archil's free and Developer tiers cap both the number of file systems and the number of concurrent sandboxes, which suits storage-heavy work while compute-heavy fleets reach the sandbox limit first.
These are the moments that usually start the search:
The agent needs a browser. Research, form filling and sign-ins happen on real websites. A disk and a sandbox cannot load a page, so a second vendor joins the stack.
The agent needs a screen. Models with computer use operate software through a screen, clicking and typing like a person. That takes a full desktop, not a shell.
The agent needs its memory back. Files survive between calls, but a long task also has running processes, open interpreters and loaded data in memory. Rebuilding them on every call costs time on every step.
The fleet outgrows the caps. A production fleet runs hundreds or thousands of agents at once. The concurrency limit, not the storage, then decides which vendor and which contract you need.
Archil Alternatives at a Glance
1. Solari
Solari is agent infrastructure from one API: cloud browsers, AI sandboxes and computer desktops on one account and one bill. Your agent brings the model and the logic; Solari gives it a machine to run code, a browser to work the web and a screen to operate apps.
Files that outlive the machine. A Solari volume is durable storage you attach to a sandbox at start-up and read and write like any folder. When the machine goes away, the data stays, and the next sandbox mounts it again.
Memory and processes, not just files. Pause a Solari sandbox and its memory and processes are saved; resume it and your agent picks up exactly where it stopped. Stop it instead and only the files stay.
Snapshot and fork. A snapshot saves a running machine's disk and memory, so you can rewind it or start many ready copies from one prepared state. Stored snapshots cost $0.05 per GB-month, and the first 10 GB are free.
A browser on the same account. Solari creates a browser session in 8 ms, and you drive it over Playwright or Puppeteer. Your agent reads the web from the same account that runs its code, and profiles keep its logins between runs.
A desktop for computer use. Solari desktops give a computer-use agent a full Linux screen it can see and operate. A paused desktop keeps its state and frees its slot until you resume it.
Isolation you choose. Every Solari sandbox runs by default in a microVM, a lightweight virtual machine of its own. The hardened tier blocks all outbound network, for agent code you do not trust.
Solari is also almost 3x cheaper than E2B and than Daytona per sandbox hour, and bills per second while an environment runs. You start on a free account and move up as the fleet grows.
Solari fits teams whose agents run code, browse the web and operate apps, and who want all three behind one API instead of three vendors.
2. E2B
Pricing and plans. E2B's free Hobby plan comes with a $100 one-time usage credit, sessions of up to 1 hour and 20 concurrent sandboxes; its Pro plan costs $150 a month plus usage and raises sessions to 24 hours and concurrency to 100 sandboxes. Larger fleets move to a custom contract with committed usage.
Where it fits. E2B is a code execution sandbox built for agent-generated code, with per-second billing and custom CPU and memory on paid plans. Archil disks also mount inside E2B, so a team can keep Archil for storage and move compute to E2B.
Trade-off. The session cap decides the plan: an agent that works through a long task needs paid sessions, and multi-day sessions sit with the custom contract. E2B sells sandboxes only, so an agent that also browses the web needs a second vendor.
3. Daytona
Pricing and plans. Daytona bills per second with no plan fee: $0.0504 per vCPU-hour, $0.0162 per GiB of memory per hour, the first 5 GiB of storage free and $200 in free compute for new accounts. Pay-as-you-go suits teams that want no monthly commitment.
Where it fits. Daytona offers four sandbox classes: container, Linux VM, Windows and GPU. Its VM sandboxes run a full virtual machine with its own kernel and support pause and resume, fork and hot snapshots, which suits agents that branch a task into parallel attempts.
Trade-off. Containers are Daytona's default class, so the VM features above depend on choosing the VM class. Daytona publishes no concurrency cap on its pricing page, so planning a large fleet starts with a sales conversation.
4. Modal
Pricing and plans. Modal's free plan charges for compute only and includes 3 workspace seats and 100 containers, and its paid plan for larger organizations raises the limit to 5000 containers. Sandboxes bill per second at non-preemptible rates, above the price of Modal's standard serverless functions.
Where it fits. Modal is a serverless platform for Python with a deep GPU catalogue. Teams that already train or serve models on Modal can add sandboxes on the same account and scale them with request volume.
Trade-off. Long-lived agent sessions pay the higher sandbox rate for every second they run, so the headline per-second price understates the cost of an agent that works all day. Modal is built for Python and GPU jobs first, with sandboxes as one product among several.
5. Blaxel
Pricing and plans. Blaxel is pay as you go with no plan fee and free credits to start. Sandbox limits rise in tiers as you top up credits, so a fleet grows with what you prepay.
Where it fits. Blaxel's microVM sandboxes suspend to zero when idle and resume from standby with memory and filesystem intact. Volumes and a shared Agent Drive keep files for longer, which puts Blaxel closest to Archil's idea of state that outlives a call.
Trade-off. Blaxel bills active time by the memory a sandbox is allocated, and suspended sandboxes pay for snapshot storage while they wait. The model rewards agents that idle often; a sandbox that stays busy all day gains little from suspend.
Where Are Agent Sandboxes Going Next?
Agent sandboxes are turning from throwaway containers into the agent's own computer. Over the next year that changes four things:
State becomes the default. Agents that work across days will expect their files, processes and logins to be there the next morning. Pause, resume and durable volumes will be table stakes, not features.
One account for code, web and screen. Most real jobs mix running code, reading websites and operating apps. Teams will stop stitching three vendors together for one agent.
Fleets of forks. Agents will clone a running machine to try several approaches at once and keep the one that works. Snapshot speed will matter as much as boot speed.
Isolation by policy. Egress rules and credential handling will move into the sandbox's configuration, so security teams can approve an agent fleet once instead of reviewing each task.
What stays human is the judgement around the machine: what an agent may touch, which data it keeps and which results ship. The teams that win will set those rules once and let the fleet run.
Which Archil Alternative Should You Choose?
Choose Solari when your agent needs more than a disk: volumes for files, sandboxes that save memory and processes, and a browser and desktop on the same account at the lower sandbox price above. Choose E2B for short code execution with a large free credit, Daytona for VM, Windows and GPU classes, Modal when your models already run there, and Blaxel when your agents sit idle most of the day.
Stay with Archil when storage is the product and the compute around it changes often. Archil is the specialist for durable, shared disks across many compute providers; Solari moves faster on speed and price and puts the agent's whole working environment behind one account.
Get Started With Solari
Start with one job, such as moving a coding agent's workspace to a Solari volume and pausing its sandbox between tasks, then add a browser when the agent needs the web. Solari is the fastest and cheapest way to run cloud browsers and VMs for sandboxed AI agents. Get started with a free account and start running your agents today.
