# E2B vs Daytona

Two sandbox SDKs for AI-generated code. E2B is Firecracker microVMs with memory snapshots; Daytona defaults to containers and adds Windows, macOS and GPU sandboxes.

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

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 E2B for microVM isolation, pause with memory and an open-source runtime you can self-host. Pick Daytona for Windows, macOS or GPU sandboxes and BYOC runners.

## The useful distinction

E2B: Firecracker microVM sandboxes driven from an SDK. Your agent runs code there; the loop, the git steps and the pull request are your code. Rush itself runs on E2B.

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.

## Buyer questions

| Question | E2B | Daytona |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What runs | None built in. You bring the agent; E2B ships a prebuilt claude template and guides for Codex and OpenCode. | None built in. You bring the agent, or drive sandboxes from Claude, Cursor or Windsurf through Daytona's MCP server. |
| Isolation | Firecracker microVMs with dedicated kernels. A paused sandbox keeps its filesystem and memory, with no automatic deletion. | Linux 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. |
| Result and pull request | Left to you. E2B's Claude Code guide clones with your token, runs the agent and reads git diff; pushing and opening the pull request is your code. | Left to you. The git API clones, branches, commits and pushes; opening the pull request is your code. |
| MCP | An MCP gateway inside the sandbox reaches 200+ servers from Docker's catalog, or servers you run yourself. | An MCP server lets Claude, Cursor and Windsurf create sandboxes, run code, use git and preview ports. |
| Team | An SDK for your own product. No shared task view or Slack and Linear surface on the pages we read. | Organizations and SSO. Enterprise adds audit logs and BYOC. No task view or Slack and Linear surface. |
| Starting price | Hobby $0 with a one-time $100 credit; Pro $150 / month plus usage | $200 of free compute, then pay as you go with no monthly fee |
| Where it taps out | Sessions end at 1 hour on Hobby and 24 hours on Pro unless paused. Sandboxes reach the open internet by default. No result or pull request layer. Pro has a $150 monthly fee before usage. | Default 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. |

## When each side wins

### E2B wins when

- You want raw SDK control over each sandbox, for an agent you wrote or for work that is not an agent at all.
- You must self-host: the runtime is Apache-2.0, runs on one KVM host or ships as Terraform for AWS, GCP and Azure, and E2B also offers BYOC.
- You want published per-second rates for CPU and RAM and up to 1,100 concurrent sandboxes on its top published tier.

### 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.

## Where Rush sits

Rush runs on E2B and sits a level above both: you send the task, and the agent, the clone, the pull request and the transcript are already built.

## 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.

## Questions people actually ask

### Is E2B cheaper than Daytona?

List prices, read off each vendor's pricing page on 17 October 2026. E2B: Hobby $0 with a one-time $100 credit; Pro $150 / month plus usage. Daytona: $200 of free compute, then pay as you go with no monthly fee. The units differ, so price the job you run, not the plan.

### Where does Rush fit next to E2B and Daytona?

Rush runs on E2B and sits a level above both: you send the task, and the agent, the clone, the pull request and the transcript are already built.

## Keep reading

- [Rush vs E2B](https://getrush.ai/compare/rush-vs-e2b.md)
- [Rush vs Daytona](https://getrush.ai/compare/rush-vs-daytona.md)
- [E2B alternatives](https://getrush.ai/compare/e2b-alternatives.md)
- [Daytona alternatives](https://getrush.ai/compare/daytona-alternatives.md)

## Sources

1. E2B, "E2B Pricing", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://e2b.dev/pricing
2. E2B, "E2B | The Enterprise AI Agent Cloud", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://e2b.dev/
3. E2B, "Sandbox persistence", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://docs.e2b.dev/sandbox/persistence
4. E2B, "Claude Code - E2B Docs", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://docs.e2b.dev/agents/claude-code
5. E2B, "Coding Agents - E2B Docs", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://docs.e2b.dev/use-cases/coding-agents
6. E2B, "Available servers - E2B Docs", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://docs.e2b.dev/mcp-gateway/available-servers
7. E2B, "e2b-dev/infra (GitHub README)", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://github.com/e2b-dev/infra
8. Daytona, "Daytona - Secure Infrastructure for Running AI-Generated Code (pricing)", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/pricing
9. Daytona, "Sandboxes | Daytona", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/sandboxes
10. Daytona, "Daytona MCP Server | Daytona", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/mcp
11. Daytona, "Git Operations | Daytona", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/git-operations
12. Daytona, "Bring Your Own Compute (BYOC) | Daytona", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/bring-your-own-compute
13. Daytona, "daytonaio/daytona (GitHub README)", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://github.com/daytonaio/daytona
14. Rush, "Rush product requirements", retrieved 2026-09-15. https://getrush.ai/cloud
15. Rush, "Rush pricing (live contract on getrush.ai)", retrieved 2026-09-15. https://getrush.ai/pricing
16. Rush, "Isolation, plainly", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/isolation
17. Rush, "Results and proof", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/results-and-proof
18. Rush, "Usage and billing", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/usage-and-billing
19. Rush, "Rush MCP server", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/mcp-server
20. Rush, "Automations", retrieved 2026-10-17. https://getrush.ai/docs/concepts/automations