There are a thousand ways to sandbox an agent. Okay, I lied. There are three: simulated, containers, and microVMs. Here's when to use each.
Computers for agents
Sandboxes aren't enough. Give your agent a real computer and get back to building.
Container Use for Locally Sandboxed, Background Agents in Zed
From the Zed Blog: Run AI agents in parallel without interference using containerized environments and Git Worktrees.
New in Claude Managed Agents: self-hosted sandboxes and MCP tunnels | Claude
Claude Managed Agents can now operate in a sandbox you control and connect to your private Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers
agentOS — A faster, lighter, cheaper alternative to sandboxes
A portable open-source operating system for agents. Stateful runtime, universal agent interface, and secure code execution. One SDK, deploy anywhere.
shuru - Local-first microVM sandbox for AI agents
Local-first microVM sandbox for AI agents on macOS, with experimental Linux ARM64 support
Sprites - Stateful sandboxes
Persistent, hardware-isolated execution environments for arbitrary code. Run AI agents, untrusted code, and more in secure sandbox environments with checkpoint & restore.
Claude on Twitter / X
With self-hosted sandboxes, you can run agents in any environment you control: your own infrastructure, or managed providers like Cloudflare, Daytona, Modal, or Vercel. pic.twitter.com/OELUCt7QRf— Claude (@claudeai) May 19, 2026
dagger/container-use
Development environments for coding agents. Enable multiple agents to work safely and independently with your preferred stack.
Docker Sandboxes: Run Agents in YOLO Mode, Safely | Docker
Learn from Docker experts to simplify and advance your app development and management with Docker. Stay up to date on Docker events and new version
Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer
Agents need more than just a container to scale. We're introducing @cloudflare/computer, an agent runtime that dynamically orchestrates between fast, efficient isolates and full Linux containers to give every agent a computer of its own.
Where Should the Agent(s) Live? – OpenComputer
Isolation models, agent placement tradeoffs, credential design, and sandbox lifecycle patterns for agentic systems.
microsandbox - Every agent deserves its own machine
Run lightweight microVMs locally. Programmable networking, custom filesystems, secrets that never leak.
Coasts — Containerized Hosts for AI Agents
Free, open source parallel runtimes for AI agents. Run multiple isolated environments on your machine — no cloud, no conflicts.
