Agent sandboxes / OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes alternative

An OpenPond cloud sandboxes alternative for a growing agent environment

OpenPond offers cloud sandboxes alongside its agent harness, desktop, and team workflows. Its public plan separates running concurrency, retained sandboxes, and volumes; the current SDK also exposes snapshot and volume-retention policy. Compare those contracts with the machine state your application needs.

Start buildingCompare capabilities ↓

Reviewed 2026-10-18 · Published by the Sandbox0 team

When OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes fits

OpenPond fits teams that want its open-source agent stack, team projects, hosted model gateway, and cloud execution under one usage balance. Retained sandbox and volume entitlements support workflows that return to saved state.

When to consider Sandbox0

Consider Sandbox0 when your application owns the harness and primarily needs a durable Linux RootFS with automatic online growth and supported file access during compute pauses. Recreate any OpenPond project, team, or agent orchestration features separately.

Capabilities

OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes and Sandbox0: what persists?

Feature comparison with documentation and verification status
Environment and runtime lifetimeOpenPond Cloud SandboxesNot established in this reviewSandbox0ttl and hard_ttl default to 0 (disabled). Configure idle pause and deletion policies for the same persistent sandbox identity; an idle running sandbox still accrues compute charges.Read documentation →
Persistent filesOpenPond Cloud SandboxesThe public SDK supports separately retained volumes; template defaults keep them when a sandbox is deleted.View evidence ↗Sandbox0The writable RootFS survives successful checkpoints, including software, system configuration, dependencies, and user data.Read documentation →
Whole RootFSOpenPond Cloud SandboxesThe SDK tracks rootfs and dependency snapshot identifiers, but the reviewed surface does not establish one complete writable-RootFS retention guarantee for every deployment.View evidence ↗Sandbox0Persistence extends beyond /workspace to paths such as /usr/local, /etc, and /home. Runtime tmpfs and virtual filesystems are excluded.Read documentation →
Release compute, keep stateOpenPond Cloud SandboxesPublic types distinguish stopped and archived sandbox states; exact process-preserving pause semantics are not established here.View evidence ↗Sandbox0Pause compute between tasks; resume on available capacity. Default resume starts fresh processes from the saved filesystem.Read documentation →
Memory and process stateOpenPond Cloud SandboxesSnapshot metadata does not itself establish RAM or running-process restoration semantics.View evidence ↗Sandbox0Experimental memory checkpoints can preserve compatible process state. Use memory: true on both pause and resume on a compatible deployment. A filesystem checkpoint alone does not preserve running processes.Read documentation →

Online RootFS growth

On growth-enabled images, Sandbox0 automatically expands the writable RootFS as free space runs low, within a configured sparse logical ceiling up to 64 TiB. Agent processes keep running. Growth is enabled in the qualified Cloud region; confirm activation for other regions. Existing images and snapshots retain their captured storage geometry. The ceiling is logical capacity, not preallocated host disk.

The published default shape includes 10 GiB of VM disk, and the SDK has separate volume-size settings. This does not establish a universal root-disk cap or automatic online expansion of the whole writable RootFS.

Files while compute is paused

Sandbox0's Files API reads persistent files without resuming compute. Filesystem-only pauses also permit edits; retained-memory pauses are read-only and reject mutations with 409. SSH, SFTP, file watching, and runtime-only mounts require running compute.

See paused file operations →

Running concurrency and retained environments are separate quotas

OpenPond’s Free plan lists one concurrent cloud sandbox but five retained sandboxes; paid plans list higher independent counts. Volumes and retained volume storage have their own limits. Size the desired returning-user population separately from how many agents run at the same time.

Source 1 ↗

Volume deletion and snapshot retention require explicit choices

The reviewed SDK defines volume deletion policy separately from the sandbox, and template normalization defaults deleteOnSandboxDelete to false. Snapshot metadata also distinguishes retention classes and storage locations. These are configurable API surfaces, not proof that every deployment provides the same whole-filesystem or process-recovery guarantee.

Source 1 ↗Source 2 ↗Source 3 ↗

The published compute price is for one default shape

OpenPond quotes a per-second price for a default CPU, memory, and VM-disk configuration. Durable storage continues consuming usage while retained, and monthly plan credits fund hosted usage. Check custom resources, retention, and enabled overage rather than extrapolating the default machine rate to every sandbox.

Source 1 ↗

Pricing

Compare billing models, then price your workload

CPU allocation, memory, billing minimums, disk, plan fees, and supported workload differ. These meters are not equal-performance machine quotes. Confirm region, resource units, and included allowances before estimating a total.

OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes

Pricing reviewed 2026-10-18

Default cloud sandbox compute
$0.0000333 per second
About $0.12/hour for 1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, and 10 GiB VM disk; custom shapes require their effective rate.
Rate source ↗
Durable storage
$0.0518 per GiB-month
Retained resources continue consuming hosted usage.
Rate source ↗
Starter / Pro plans
$10 / $20 per month including $10 / $20 hosted usage
Usage beyond the included credit is additional; overage and account limits apply.
Rate source ↗
Additional paid-plan members
$8 per member-month
Rate source ↗

Free supports credits without a subscription; paid plans add team and capacity entitlements. Model tokens, search, compute, and retained storage consume distinct usage meters. The cited SDK behavior is pinned to a specific revision; confirm the deployed version and effective whole-filesystem, snapshot and retention guarantees.

Check current OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes pricing ↗

Sandbox0

$0.015/GiB-hour compute (billed by the second at approximately $0.000004167/GiB-second), plus $0.02/GiB-month of retained incremental RootFS and memory checkpoint data. Shared base images and platform recovery retention are excluded; paused sandboxes accrue storage charges only.

Compute / GiB-hour
$0.015
Retained data / GiB-month
$0.02
Paused compute
$0.00

A 4 GiB agent, 100 running hours

$6.00 compute

4 GiB × 100 hours, billed by the second. Keeping 20 GiB of billable incremental data for a full billing month adds $0.40. CPU is derived from memory by the platform; choose a tier that fits your workload.

Understand storage billing →

Before migrating from OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes

  1. Inventory projects, team entitlements, sandbox IDs, rootfs snapshots, external volumes, and retention/deletion policy before cleanup.
  2. Export required machine and volume data through the supported deployment interfaces, and port image, commands, credentials, and agent integration.
  3. Validate system-package retention, whole-RootFS growth, paused file access, process requirements, and the full plan-plus-hosted-usage budget.

Common questions

Is Sandbox0 a drop-in OpenPond Cloud Sandboxes replacement?

Evaluate API compatibility and product scope. A shared sandbox category does not make SDKs, lifecycle semantics, or limits interchangeable.

Does keeping files also keep a running agent?

Filesystem state and volatile process state are separate. Sandbox0 requires explicit compatible memory checkpoints to preserve running processes; its default filesystem resume starts fresh processes.

Sources and review scope

The Boat team's Battleships directory is the discovery source. References below describe the product and plan discussed on this page. Check current availability, regional terms and billing units before migrating. Where the cited material does not establish a capability or price, the comparison identifies that uncertainty.

Battleships research record ↗openpond.ai/pricing ↗github.com/openpond/openpond/blob/4ca58fc9d7ef2fb015ad8d3b2d7f032238db63a2/packages/cloud/src/sandbox/types/core.ts ↗github.com/openpond/openpond/blob/4ca58fc9d7ef2fb015ad8d3b2d7f032238db63a2/packages/cloud/src/sandbox-template/manifest.ts ↗github.com/openpond/openpond/blob/4ca58fc9d7ef2fb015ad8d3b2d7f032238db63a2/packages/cloud/src/sandbox/types/snapshots.ts ↗github.com/openpond/openpond/blob/4ca58fc9d7ef2fb015ad8d3b2d7f032238db63a2/packages/cloud/src/sandbox/types/runtime.ts ↗Sandbox0 RootFS capacity →

Related comparisons

Agent 37 vs Sandbox0 →AgentComputer vs Sandbox0 →ainclave vs Sandbox0 →Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox / FC / AgentRun vs Sandbox0 →Alibaba Cloud AgentBay vs Sandbox0 →Amika vs Sandbox0 →