Compare · Agent sandboxes · verified 17 Oct 2026

Daytona vs Modal Sandboxes

Both sell programmable sandboxes per second with GPUs on the price sheet. Daytona defaults to containers; Modal defaults to gVisor.

Facts checked 17 October 2026. Prices and limits move. Read the citations.

Start a TaskAll comparison pages
Vendor agentDevin · Cursor · Copilot · Julessame jobRushYour harness, isolated, one PR
Isolated sandbox rooms, one per run

Neither product is ours. Rush is, and it gets one paragraph below. Every cell is from the vendor's own pages.

The short answer

Pick Daytona for many sandbox operating systems and BYOC. Pick Modal for GPU sandboxes and fan-out at RL scale on one serverless platform.

Read this first

The useful distinction

Daytona: Elastic sandboxes for AI-generated code: Linux containers by default, with VM, Windows, macOS and GPU options, SDKs in five languages, an MCP server and BYOC.

Modal Sandboxes: Programmable gVisor containers, or a VM runtime, on Modal's serverless cloud, for agent code, RL rollouts and untrusted code, with snapshots, egress rules and GPUs.

Head to head

Buyer questions

QuestionDaytonaModal Sandboxes
What runsNone built in. You bring the agent, or drive sandboxes from Claude, Cursor or Windsurf through Daytona's MCP server.None built in. You bring the agent and call Sandbox.create from Python.
IsolationLinux containers by default, each with its own kernel, filesystem and network stack; dedicated VMs are opt-in. Container sandboxes keep the filesystem on stop but not memory, and auto-stop after 15 idle minutes.gVisor by default, or a VM runtime with its own kernel. Default lifetime is 5 minutes and the timeout goes up to 24 hours; past that you restore from a filesystem snapshot.
Result and pull requestLeft to you. The git API clones, branches, commits and pushes; opening the pull request is your code.Left to you. The sandbox guide has no git or pull request feature.
MCPAn MCP server lets Claude, Cursor and Windsurf create sandboxes, run code, use git and preview ports.Not mentioned on Modal's sandbox guide.
TeamOrganizations and SSO. Enterprise adds audit logs and BYOC. No task view or Slack and Linear surface.Workspaces, environments, service users, user groups and role-based access control.
Starting price$200 of free compute, then pay as you go with no monthly feeStarter $0 + compute with $30 / month credit; Team $250 / month + compute
Where it taps outDefault runtime is a container, and container sandboxes cannot pause memory. The 15-minute auto-stop does not count a running process as activity. The open-source repository stopped receiving updates in June 2026.5-minute default lifetime and a 24-hour cap per sandbox. Sandbox CPU costs about three times a Modal function's. GPU sandboxes need the gVisor runtime.

Decision

When each side wins

Daytona wins when

  • You need Windows, macOS or GPU sandboxes as well as Linux, from one SDK.
  • You want BYOC: your own runner nodes managed by Daytona's control plane.
  • You want SDKs in TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go and Java, and an MCP server your IDE agent can drive.

Modal Sandboxes wins when

  • You need GPUs inside the sandbox, billed per second.
  • You fan out at RL scale: Modal advertises 1M+ sandboxes in under a minute.
  • You want CIDR and domain egress allowlists and one platform for inference, training and sandboxes.

Rush

Where Rush sits

Neither runs the agent for you. Rush does, for the narrower case of an agent doing a task and returning a pull request or report.

Honest limits

Skip Rush if

  • Rush runs three agents: Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode. It does not host an agent you wrote yourself.
  • Repositories come through the Rush GitHub App. A GitLab or Bitbucket repository cannot be a run's repository yet.
  • There is no self-hosted or customer-VPC deployment, and we do not publish a compliance report today.
  • Compute is metered. Free includes 5 agent-hours a month and Pro 40, each with a weekly ceiling.
  • You review the pull request. Rush does not merge for you.

FAQ

Questions people actually ask

Is Daytona cheaper than Modal Sandboxes?

List prices, read off each vendor's pricing page on 17 October 2026. Daytona: $200 of free compute, then pay as you go with no monthly fee. Modal Sandboxes: Starter $0 + compute with $30 / month credit; Team $250 / month + compute. The units differ, so price the job you run, not the plan.

Where does Rush fit next to Daytona and Modal Sandboxes?

Neither runs the agent for you. Rush does, for the narrower case of an agent doing a task and returning a pull request or report.

Cluster

Keep reading

Citations

Sources

Every factual claim on this page traces to one of these URLs. Retrieval date is 17 October 2026 unless the source prints an earlier published date.

  1. [1] Daytona, “Daytona - Secure Infrastructure for Running AI-Generated Code (pricing)”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/pricing
  2. [2] Daytona, “Sandboxes | Daytona”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/sandboxes
  3. [3] Daytona, “Daytona MCP Server | Daytona”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/mcp
  4. [4] Daytona, “Git Operations | Daytona”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/git-operations
  5. [5] Daytona, “Bring Your Own Compute (BYOC) | Daytona”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/bring-your-own-compute
  6. [6] Daytona, “daytonaio/daytona (GitHub README)”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://github.com/daytonaio/daytona
  7. [7] Modal, “Pricing: Pay per second for GPUs and CPUs | Modal”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://modal.com/pricing
  8. [8] Modal, “Sandboxes (Modal Docs)”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandboxes
  9. [9] Modal, “Sandboxes: Isolated environments for reinforcement learning and AI agents | Modal”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://modal.com/products/sandboxes
  10. [10] Modal, “Networking and security | Modal Docs”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox-networking
  11. [11] Modal, “Top AI Code Sandbox Products in 2025”, published 2025-07-17. https://modal.com/blog/top-code-agent-sandbox-products
  12. [12] Rush, “Rush product requirements”, retrieved 2026-09-15. https://getrush.ai/cloud
  13. [13] Rush, “Rush pricing (live contract on getrush.ai)”, retrieved 2026-09-15. https://getrush.ai/pricing
  14. [14] Rush, “Isolation, plainly”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/isolation
  15. [15] Rush, “Results and proof”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/results-and-proof
  16. [16] Rush, “Usage and billing”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/usage-and-billing
  17. [17] Rush, “Rush MCP server”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/mcp-server
  18. [18] Rush, “Automations”, retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/automations

Next

Run the next Task on Rush

Connect a repository. Pick Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode. Review the PR.

How the runtime works