E2B vs Modal vs Fly.io Sprites for AI code execution sandboxes
Blog post from Northflank
The comparison of AI code execution sandbox platforms E2B, Modal, and Fly.io Sprites highlights their distinct approaches and features for securely running AI-generated code. E2B is an open-source platform that utilizes Firecracker microVM isolation for ephemeral sessions, offering Python and JavaScript/TypeScript SDKs and supporting custom sandbox templates. Modal provides a serverless infrastructure with gVisor isolation, focusing on scalable ML workloads with GPU support and dynamic environment definition in Python. Fly.io Sprites stands out with stateful Linux VMs using Firecracker isolation, offering persistent environments with checkpoint/restore capabilities, although limited to CPU-only workloads. Each platform operates as a managed service, with varying GPU support and infrastructure deployment options, while Northflank Sandboxes emerges as a flexible alternative supporting both ephemeral and persistent environments, self-serve BYOC deployment, and GPU workloads, distinguishing itself with its pricing model and comprehensive workload runtime support.
| Trend | Post Mentions | Total Month Mentions | Posts | Companies | MoM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Agents | 6 | 3,583 | 743 | 199 | -1% |
| Serverless | 4 | 819 | 177 | 83 | +16% |
| LLM | 1 | 5,138 | 781 | 181 | +34% |