The coding agent finished its refactor overnight, and the reviewer wanted proof that the login page still worked before merging. The sandbox could run the tests, but the browser that would check the page lived with another vendor, under another key and on another invoice. By the stand-up, somebody asked whether the sandbox layer was the right choice.
That question is how most searches for Daytona alternatives start: the isolation default, a browser at a second vendor, or the bill as the fleet grows. For most agent teams the best Daytona alternative is Solari, which runs sandboxes, cloud browsers and computer desktops from one API and comes out faster and cheaper than Daytona on its own pricing page; E2B, Modal, Vercel Sandbox and Blaxel each fit a narrower job. This guide covers why teams switch, then each alternative with its pricing, fit and trade-off.
Why Teams Look Beyond Daytona
Before the list, it helps to name the triggers, because each alternative answers a different one.
The first is isolation. Daytona's sandboxes page says "Sandboxes run as Linux containers by default", a form of OS-level virtualization, and its isolation page describes the optional VM class as a "Full virtual machine with its own kernel". A team running untrusted code often wants the hypervisor boundary as the default, not a class to remember.
The second is the browser. Daytona's own post Daytona runs the code, Notte runs the browser pairs it with a separate browser vendor, which means a second account when an agent must both run code and operate a website.
The third is cost at volume. Daytona says it bills $0.0504 per vCPU hour and $0.0162 per GiB of memory per hour, metered per second, with $200 in free compute to start, on its pricing page. The page publishes no concurrency cap, so a large fleet starts with a sales call. Those triggers shape the comparison below.
Daytona Alternatives at a Glance
The table keeps each vendor to a short label; the entries after it carry the numbers.
1. Solari
Solari comes first because it covers the widest part of an agent's work, code, the web and a screen, from one account.
What it does. Solari Sandboxes are isolated Linux machines created by API, with commands, files, Git, snapshots and forks. The docs say the default dedicated tier "is a microVM of your own", the hardened tier blocks all outbound network, and the shared tier "is cheaper and starts faster". Computer Desktops add a graphical screen with a live view, and cloud browsers, each a headless browser started by API, sit in the same account.
Pause and resume. The docs say "Pause saves memory and processes and resume() brings the sandbox back exactly as it was", while "A stopped sandbox keeps its files, not its running state". A paused VM does not count against the plan's limit on running VMs, so an agent waiting on a model stops holding a slot. Daytona's isolation page ties pause, resume and fork to its VM class; on Solari they come with the default tier.
Speed. Solari's pricing page shows a sandbox's full lifecycle running about 1.7x faster than Daytona (Daytona pricing) and about 1.3x faster than E2B (E2B pricing). The site says sandboxes are ready in 90 ms.
Per-vCPU pricing is the cleanest like-for-like line between Solari and Daytona.
Pricing and plans. Solari bills sandboxes at $0.0245 per vCPU hour and $0.0077 per GB hour on Professional, and $0.0175 per vCPU hour on Team, per the docs pricing page. At list price, the comparison on Solari's pricing page puts Solari almost 3x cheaper per sandbox hour than Daytona and E2B. Free plan credits refill monthly, and the docs say "there is no end-of-month overage charge".
Who it's best for. Teams whose agent writes code and then checks it in a browser or on a screen, without a second vendor. Concurrency scales from 10 sandboxes on Professional to 100,000 on Enterprise, and Solari's introduction covers how the three surfaces share one account. For teams that only need the sandbox, E2B is the nearest swap.
2. E2B
E2B is the closest like-for-like replacement, a sandbox-first vendor built around code execution.
Pricing and plans. E2B says its Hobby plan is free with a $100 one-time credit, sessions up to an hour and 20 concurrent sandboxes, and that Pro costs $150 a month plus usage with 24-hour sessions, on its pricing page. Enterprise needs a $3,000 monthly minimum, per the same E2B pricing page. Any agent that runs past the Hobby cap starts on Pro.
Where it fits. Code-interpreter agents and teams that want concurrency published per plan, which Daytona's pricing page does not list. E2B ships steadily, most recently E2B Secrets in October.
Trade-off. The Hobby credit is one-time, so a prototype that outgrows it moves onto paid Pro. On the lifecycle chart above, E2B trails Solari, which matters for agents that create many short-lived sandboxes. Teams with GPU work often look at Modal next.
3. Modal
Modal suits a team that already runs Python functions or GPU jobs and wants sandboxes beside them.
Pricing and plans. Modal bills sandbox CPU and memory per second, at non-preemptible rates above its function rates, on its pricing page. In the list-price comparison on Solari's pricing page, a 4 vCPU, 8 GB Modal sandbox comes to $0.761 per hour, the highest of the vendors compared, against the per-second rates on Modal's own page.
Where it fits. Python-heavy teams with GPU workloads, since one workspace runs functions, scheduled jobs and GPUs alongside sandboxes. Code moves between a function and a sandbox without leaving the platform.
Trade-off. Sandboxes are one product among many, so the API is shaped around serverless compute rather than long-lived agent machines. Teams on Vercel have a closer option.
4. Vercel Sandbox
Vercel Sandbox is the option for teams whose apps already deploy on Vercel.
Pricing and plans. Vercel says "Time spent waiting for I/O (such as network requests, database queries, or AI model calls) does not count toward Active CPU", on its Sandbox pricing page, while provisioned memory is billed idle time included. In the same comparison on Solari's pricing page, a Vercel Sandbox hour comes to $0.683 at list price, against the active-CPU rates on Vercel's own page. An agent that mostly waits on model calls pays less CPU than that figure suggests.
Where it fits. Each sandbox is a Firecracker microVM with its own filesystem and network, per the Vercel Sandbox docs, with OIDC authentication. Teams already on Vercel skip a new vendor review.
Trade-off. The product lives inside the Vercel platform, so a team hosted elsewhere adopts a platform account for one primitive. Blaxel takes the opposite approach to idle time.
5. Blaxel
Blaxel targets agents that sit idle most of the time and need to wake quickly.
Pricing and plans. Blaxel says new accounts get up to $200 in free credits and that "suspended time never counts toward active CPU", on its pricing page. Standby is paid as snapshot storage, so the bill for bursty agents follows activity rather than the clock.
Where it fits. Blaxel says its microVM sandboxes suspend when idle and resume with memory and filesystem intact, on the same Blaxel pricing page. It is also a sandbox provider in the OpenAI Agents SDK.
Trade-off. Rates are quoted per GB of RAM per second, so a monthly estimate needs a model of how often agents wake. Steady, always-on workloads see less of the scale-to-zero saving.
Choosing the Right Setup
The choice follows the trigger that started the search. Choose Solari when the agent needs a microVM by default, pause and resume on the standard tier, and a browser or desktop from the same API at the lower price above. Choose E2B for a close sandbox swap, Modal when GPU and Python work already live there, Vercel Sandbox when apps deploy on Vercel, and Blaxel when agents idle between bursts. Daytona is the more established sandbox vendor with the larger ecosystem; Solari is the younger company and moves faster on speed and price.
Get Started With Solari
Start by moving the riskiest part of the job, the untrusted code the agent writes, into a dedicated Solari sandbox, then add a browser from the same key when it needs the web. Solari is the faster and cheaper home for that job, with the lifecycle and per-hour edges shown above, and the Free plan costs nothing to start. Create a free Solari account and follow the sandboxes guide to run the first one.
