CreateOS Sandbox vs Alibaba Cloud AgentBay
Choose AgentBay when agents must drive Windows desktops, cloud Android phones or browsers at scale, especially if you already run on Alibaba Cloud. Choose CreateOS Sandbox for untrusted agent code that needs a micro-VM boundary, a documented egress default and fork. AgentBay describes its environments as secure containers and does not publish a default egress policy.
Pricing at a Glance
CreateOS rates verified 17 October 2026. Alibaba Cloud AgentBay pricing as published on 17 October 2026. Rates billed per GB rather than per GiB, or as bundled sizes, are quoted as published rather than converted.
CreateOS Sandbox
- Compute
- $0.0362 /vCPU-hr
- Memory
- $0.0116 /GiB-hr
Alibaba Cloud AgentBay
AgentBay charges per second at $0.027 per core-hour of CPU and $0.0113 per GB-hour of memory, on a free Basic plan or Pro ($149/month) and Ultra ($225/month), with storage beyond the included amount at $0.000045 per GiB-hour, as of 17 October 2026.
Where CreateOS Sandbox Fits Better
What CreateOS Sandbox brings to this matchup, with a plain note on where Alibaba Cloud AgentBay has the edge.
A Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel per sandbox, where AgentBay describes secure containers (vendor-stated).
A documented outbound default: open with no rules, deny-by-default once any host, IP, CIDR or wildcard rule exists.
Pause is specific about state: disk, memory and CPU registers are saved. AgentBay does not publish what survives a pause.
Where Alibaba Cloud AgentBay is strong
AgentBay covers four environment types in one service, including Windows desktops and cloud Android phones that few code sandboxes offer, with ready-made Browser Use and Mobile Use agents and open-source SDKs in Python, TypeScript, Go and Java.
Which to Pick
Pick CreateOS Sandbox if
- You run untrusted code and want a micro-VM boundary.
- You need to know the outbound default before any rule is set.
- You want a Linux desktop with Chrome and a computer-use API (the desktop:1 image).
Pick Alibaba Cloud AgentBay if
- Your agents automate Windows software or Android apps.
- You need up to 200 concurrent sessions on Pro or Ultra.
- You already run on Alibaba Cloud or serve Asian markets.
Head-to-Head Comparison
Every dimension side by side, checked on 17 October 2026 against each vendor's own docs and pricing pages. "Not published" means we could not find it on the vendor's pages, not that the feature is missing.
| Dimension | CreateOS Sandbox | Alibaba Cloud AgentBay |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel | Enterprise-grade secure containers with permission isolation (vendor-stated) |
| Pause and resume | Saves disk, memory and CPU state; vCPU billing stops while paused, memory and storage still bill | Sessions pause (dormant) and resume; what survives not published |
| Fork | Fork a paused sandbox into many independent copies | Not published |
| Outbound network default | Open with no rules; deny-by-default once any host, IP, CIDR or wildcard rule exists, enforced on the host outside the VM | Not published |
| Concurrency | 1 / 5 / 20 / 30 by plan (Free to Enterprise); paused sandboxes count | Basic 10, Pro 200, Ultra 200 plus scale-out at $1.5 per session per month |
| Session length | No cap; optional idle auto-pause from 60 s to 24 h, off by default | Not published |
| Billing | Per second: $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour, $0.01159025 per GiB-hour, storage $0.0001584 per GB-hour; no egress fees (50 GiB bandwidth budget per sandbox) | $0.027 per core-hour, $0.0113 per GB-hour, per second; plans $0 to $225/month |
| SDKs and interfaces | TypeScript, Go, Python, Rust, C#, Java (all but TypeScript pre-1.0), CLI, MCP, REST | Python, TypeScript, Go and Java SDKs (Apache-2.0), MCP, Playwright/Puppeteer control |
Common Questions
Does AgentBay support Windows and Android environments?
Yes. AgentBay offers browser, Windows and Linux computer, code-space and cloud Android environments in one service. CreateOS Sandbox runs Linux images, including desktop:1, which adds an XFCE desktop, Google Chrome and a computer-use API.
How are AgentBay environments isolated?
Alibaba describes enterprise-grade secure containers with strict permission isolation, and VPC network isolation with a separate image per Computer Use task. CreateOS runs each sandbox in a Firecracker micro-VM with its own guest kernel.
How is AgentBay priced compared with CreateOS?
AgentBay bills per second at $0.027 per core-hour of CPU and $0.0113 per GB-hour of memory, with a free Basic plan and Pro or Ultra at $149 and $225 a month. CreateOS charges $0.03616363 per vCPU-hour and $0.01159025 per GiB-hour; a core may not equal a vCPU.
Sources
Checked 17 October 2026.
See CreateOS Sandbox for yourself
Book a demo, or explore the Sandbox and its pricing.