Comparison

Everstack vs E2B

Both run AI-generated code in Firecracker microVMs, and both are Apache-2.0. The differences that decide it are where the sandbox executes, whether concurrency is a pricing tier or a capacity question, and whether the sandbox arrives with the gateway and agent runtime around it.

EverstackEverstack
vs
E2BE2B
View pricingRead documentation

What is E2B?

E2B is an open source, secure environment for running AI-generated code, Apache-2.0 licensed with 13,599 GitHub stars as of August 2026. It provides Firecracker-backed sandboxes with filesystem and process APIs and a well-regarded SDK. A second Apache-2.0 repository, e2b-dev/infra, holds the Go infrastructure, and a root-level self-host.md documents a Terraform deployment. Its commercial product is hosted, with Hobby, Pro and Ultimate tiers that scale session length and concurrency.

Why teams choose Everstack

  • Sandboxes run on your own infrastructure without a concurrency tier
  • The gateway, agent runtime and evaluations share a control plane with the sandbox
  • One Apache-2.0 licence covers the platform, not just the SDK

E2B: Strengths & Limitations

Strengths

  • The best-known name in this category, with 13,599 GitHub stars as of August 2026 and an Apache-2.0 licence.
  • A genuinely excellent developer experience. Spinning a sandbox and running code takes a handful of lines, and the SDKs are well made.
  • Transparent per-second compute pricing published openly, which is rarer in this category than it should be.
  • A meaningful free tier: $100 of one-time credits, no credit card, up to 20 concurrent sandboxes.
  • Self-hosting is genuinely documented rather than merely permitted: a root-level self-host.md describes a Terraform deployment, with GCP marked GA and AWS beta.
  • Focus. E2B does sandboxes and does them well, without asking you to adopt a platform.

Limitations

  • Concurrency is a pricing tier. Hobby caps at 20 concurrent sandboxes, Pro at 100, with extra concurrency purchasable up to 1,100.
  • Session length is tiered too: up to 1 hour on Hobby, up to 24 hours on Pro.
  • The commercial product and pricing page are hosted-only. Self-hosting is documented separately in self-host.md rather than being part of what you buy, and it expects a Cloudflare account and domain, Postgres, Packer and Terraform 1.7.5.
  • It is a sandbox. Model routing, agent state, memory, evaluations and observability are separate systems you assemble.

Everstack advantage

No concurrency ceiling you have to buy pastFirecracker, Docker and Kubernetes backendsSandbox traces join gateway and agent tracesRuns inside your own compliance boundary

The facts, side by side

Licence, deployment model and list price, taken from each vendor's own documentation. Every source is linked at the bottom of this page.

FactEverstackE2B
LicenceApache-2.0 across the platform.Apache-2.0, verified against the raw LICENSE files in both repositories: e2b-dev/E2B, the SDK, and e2b-dev/infra, the Go infrastructure repository with 1,350 stars. A clean licence, and a point in E2B's favour.
Self-hostingThe default. Docker, Firecracker and Kubernetes backends on your own infrastructure.Documented and Terraform-based. A root-level self-host.md covers the deployment, with GCP marked GA and AWS beta; Azure and generic Linux are listed unchecked. It expects a Cloudflare account and domain, Postgres, Packer and Terraform 1.7.5. The commercial product and pricing page remain hosted-only.
Concurrent sandboxesBounded by the infrastructure you give it, not by a plan.Up to 20 on Hobby, up to 100 on Pro, with extra concurrency purchasable up to 1,100 (August 2026).
Maximum session lengthBounded by your configuration.Up to 1 hour on Hobby, up to 24 hours on Pro (August 2026).
Compute pricingStarter $0, Build $20/month, Scale $100/month, plus metered sandbox compute (August 2026).Hobby free with a one-time $100 of credits, Pro $150/month, Ultimate custom. Compute is per-second: 1 vCPU $0.000014/s, 2 vCPU $0.000028/s, 4 vCPU $0.000056/s, 6 vCPU $0.000084/s, 8 vCPU $0.000112/s, RAM $0.0000045/GiB/s, storage free at 10 GiB on Hobby and 20 GiB on Pro (August 2026).
Isolation backendsDocker, Firecracker microVM and Kubernetes.Firecracker microVMs, which is the right primitive for running untrusted code.
Gateway, agent runtime and evaluationsSame control plane, sharing one trace.Out of scope. E2B provides the sandbox; the rest is yours to assemble.
Community sizeSmaller.13,599 GitHub stars as of 31 August 2026.

Licences read from the raw LICENSE files in e2b-dev/E2B and e2b-dev/infra, stars from the GitHub API, self-hosting detail from the repository's self-host.md, and pricing and limits from e2b.dev/pricing, all on 31 August 2026. E2B's homepage gives two different startup figures, less than 200 ms and 80 ms, so we do not cite either as authoritative. Per-second rates change; verify before you model costs.

Feature comparison

Direct capability comparison across key dimensions

FeatureEverstackE2B
Sandbox
MicroVM isolation
Container isolation option
Kubernetes backend
Filesystem and process APIs
Long-running sessionsTiered, 1h to 24h
Unmetered concurrencyTiered, 20 to 1,100
Deployment
Documented self-hosting pathTerraform, GCP GA, AWS beta
Platform
Multi-provider model gateway
Stateful agent runtime
Vector memory
Evaluations and scoring
OpenTelemetry traces spanning sandbox and model calls
Ecosystem
Community size and worked examples
Published per-second compute ratesMetered, published per plan

The same job, in both products

Working code rather than adjectives. Each snippet follows the quickstart published by the product it belongs to.

Spawn a sandbox and run code in it

Both expose a small SDK surface for this and both are pleasant to use. E2B's is more mature. The difference is where the sandbox runs and what else is in the trace afterwards.

Everstack

sandbox.ts
import Everstack from "@everstack/node";const client = new Everstack({ apiKey: process.env.EVERSTACK_API_KEY });const sandbox = await client.sandboxes.create({ template: "python" });const result = await sandbox.exec("python -c 'print(2 + 2)'");console.log(result.stdout);await sandbox.stop();

E2B

sandbox.ts
import { Sandbox } from "@e2b/code-interpreter";const sandbox = await Sandbox.create();const execution = await sandbox.runCode("print(2 + 2)");console.log(execution.logs.stdout);await sandbox.kill();

Key evaluation questions

What to ask when comparing E2B to Everstack

QuestionEverstackE2B
Can I run sandboxes on my own infrastructure?Yes, that is the default path.Yes. self-host.md documents a Terraform deployment, GCP GA and AWS beta. It is not what the pricing page sells.
Is concurrency capped by plan?No, it is capped by the capacity you provision.Yes: 20 on Hobby, 100 on Pro, up to 1,100 purchasable.
How long can a session run?As long as you configure.Up to 1 hour on Hobby, up to 24 hours on Pro.
Does the sandbox come with a model gateway?Yes, and they share a trace.No, that is a separate system.

Feature-by-feature analysis

Where each product is genuinely stronger, row by row

Where the sandbox runs

Everstack wins
Everstack

On infrastructure you control, with Docker, Firecracker or Kubernetes backends, inside your own compliance boundary.

E2B

On E2B's infrastructure by default. Self-hosting is documented in a root-level self-host.md and deployed with Terraform, GCP GA and AWS beta, but the commercial product and pricing page are hosted-only.

Why Everstack

If AI-generated code touches customer data, where it executes is usually a compliance question rather than a preference.

Concurrency as a pricing dimension

Everstack wins
Everstack

Bounded by the capacity you provision, not by a plan.

E2B

20 concurrent on Hobby, 100 on Pro, purchasable up to 1,100.

Why Everstack

Agent workloads are bursty. A concurrency ceiling is the constraint people hit first, and hitting it is a procurement conversation rather than a scaling one.

Developer experience

E2B wins
Everstack

Good, and improving.

E2B

Excellent, and more mature. Create a sandbox and run code in about four lines.

Why E2B

E2B has had longer to polish this and it shows. If you are evaluating on how fast you get to a working demo, they win.

What else is in the trace

Everstack wins
Everstack

Sandbox execution, the model calls that produced the code, agent state and evaluation scores are all in one trace.

E2B

Sandbox execution. Correlating it with the model call that produced the code is work you do yourself.

Why Everstack

Debugging an agent that wrote bad code means seeing the prompt, the completion and the execution together. Two systems make that a join you maintain.

Moving from E2B to Everstack

Both APIs cover the same operations: create, execute, read and write files, and tear down. The port is mechanical. The real decision is whether you also want to move the surrounding stack or keep it where it is.

  1. 1

    Map the lifecycle calls

    Sandbox.create maps to sandboxes.create, runCode to exec, and kill to stop. Filesystem and process operations have direct equivalents.

  2. 2

    Rebuild your base images as templates

    E2B templates and Everstack templates are both OCI-derived, so a Dockerfile usually carries over with minimal edits.

  3. 3

    Size the infrastructure you are now running

    Self-hosting removes the concurrency tier and replaces it with capacity planning. Work out peak concurrent sandboxes and size for it before cutting over.

  4. 4

    Run both against the same workload

    Compare cold start, execution time and cost per run before shifting production traffic.

What breaks

  • E2B-specific SDK imports and the code-interpreter helpers need rewriting.
  • Anything depending on E2B's hosted template registry has to be rebuilt.
  • Desktop and browser-use helpers in the E2B ecosystem have no line-for-line equivalent.

What does not carry over

  • Existing E2B templates in their hosted registry.
  • Historical sandbox execution logs.
  • Team and concurrency settings, which become infrastructure sizing instead.

Read this part first

When to choose E2B instead

E2B is very good at what it does and for a lot of teams it is the right tool. Pick E2B over Everstack when any of these is true.

  • Sandboxing is the whole problem. If you already have a gateway, an agent framework and observability you are happy with, adding a platform to get a sandbox is over-buying.
  • You want a hosted product with no infrastructure to run. E2B's paved path is hosted, and running sandboxes yourself is real operational work.
  • You want the most mature sandbox developer experience available. E2B has had longer to polish it and it shows.
  • Predictable per-second compute pricing suits how you want to budget. Their rates are published openly, which not every vendor does.
  • Your concurrency needs fit inside the tiers. If 100 concurrent sandboxes is plenty, the ceiling never binds and self-hosting buys you nothing.
  • You want the larger community and the bigger library of worked examples.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about choosing between Everstack and E2B

Ready to get started?

See how Everstack compares to E2B for your specific use case.

View pricingRead docs

Sources & References

e2b-dev/E2B repositorye2b-dev/infra repositoryE2B licence (Apache-2.0)E2B pricingEverstack licence (Apache-2.0)

Last reviewed: August 31, 2026. This comparison is for informational purposes and reflects our understanding of competitor capabilities based on publicly available documentation.

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