Tangle vs Blaxel: which sandbox for coding agents?
Pick Blaxel for sandboxes that resume from standby in about 25 ms with memory intact, a built-in MCP server on every sandbox, and an egress proxy that injects secrets (public preview). Pick Tangle when you want coding agents installed in every sandbox, one prompt call that returns the result, usage and cost, and a fleet budget set in dollars.
Last checked November 10, 2026: each Blaxel fact links the page it came from, read that day.
Pick Blaxel when
- You need agents that sleep and wake with state intact: Blaxel sandboxes resume from standby with memory state intact. (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Overview.md)
- You need the sandbox itself to speak MCP: every Blaxel sandbox exposes a built-in MCP server. (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/MCP.md)
- You need credentials kept out of agent code: Blaxel injects secrets at a managed egress proxy (public preview). (blaxel.ai)
- You need a shared drive across agents: Blaxel offers Agent Drive for real-time multi-agent collaboration. (blaxel.ai)
Pick Tangle when
- You want the coding agent already there: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Hermes, OpenClaw, Kimi Code and Prime Agent are installed in every sandbox. (tangle.tools)
- One prompt call gives the agent its task and returns the result, token usage and cost. (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/cloud-agents)
- A fleet runs many agents under one budget, set in dollars, and the platform refuses any charge past it. (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/agents-fleet)
Blaxel and Tangle, row by row
| Feature | Blaxel | Tangle |
|---|---|---|
| Model calls | A Model Gateway routes model calls to any provider through one endpoint (blaxel.ai) | Tangle Router by default, billed to the same Tangle balance as the sandbox (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/cloud-agents) |
| Isolation | Every agent runs in its own hardware-isolated microVM (blaxel.ai/pricing) | A container or a Firecracker microVM, chosen per sandbox (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/security) |
| Stop and resume | Scales to zero after inactivity and resumes from standby; the suspended snapshot keeps the filesystem in memory and running processes (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Overview.md) | Timers you set stop a sandbox; a stopped sandbox keeps its files until you delete it or its delete timer passes (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/migrate-e2b) |
| Snapshots and forks | Point-in-time snapshots that capture filesystem, running processes and memory, with rollback and forking into new sandboxes (private preview) (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Fork.md) | Snapshot, revert, and split a running sandbox into copies (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/snapshots) |
| MCP | Every sandbox exposes a built-in MCP server, and Blaxel can host MCP servers as workloads (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/MCP.md) | A local stdio MCP server for one sandbox, plus the hosted computer-use endpoint (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/agents-mcp) |
| Secrets | Secrets injected into outbound requests through the Blaxel proxy so code never sees raw keys (public preview) (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Proxy-secrets-injection.md) | Stored once; you choose whether the sandbox can read a secret or only the network proxy can (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/secrets) |
| Network | Allowlists and denylists for domains, HTTP methods and URL paths (public preview) (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Proxy-domains.md) | Open, a strict allowlist, or blocked, changeable while the sandbox runs (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/egress) |
| Getting a shell | Interactive terminal in the console and from the CLI (docs.blaxel.ai/Sandboxes/Overview.md) | SSH, a PTY or a browser terminal (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/terminals) |
| Run records | Automatic logging, distributed tracing and metrics for agents deployed on Blaxel (docs.blaxel.ai/Observability/Overview.md) | Every agent turn is traced, and an Intelligence report summarizes what the agent did (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/observability) |
| Regions | Regions in Oregon, Virginia, London and Frankfurt (some by request) (docs.blaxel.ai/Infrastructure/Regions.md) | eu1 and us1 (tangle.tools/benchmarks) |
| Your own cloud | Offers a self-hosted option on bare metal in your own VPC, connected to the Blaxel control plane (blaxel.ai/pricing) | Tangle hosts the sandboxes; on-premises hosting is planned. agent-runtime runs the same agent code on E2B, Daytona or any ComputeSDK cloud (tangle.tools/what-is-tangle) |
| SDKs | Python, TypeScript and Go SDKs (blaxel.ai) | TypeScript, Python (tangle-sandbox on PyPI) and the tangle CLI (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/sdk-python) |
| Free start | Every account starts with free-tier quotas; see the pricing page for credit terms (blaxel.ai/pricing) | A Free plan with no included credit (tangle.tools#pricing) |
| Compliance | Lists SOC 2, HIPAA and ISO 27001 (blaxel.ai) | A SOC 2 Type II examination covering June 14 to September 14, 2026; the report is in issuance (tangle.tools/security) |
Start times: our measurements, their published claims
| Tangle, measured | p50 | p95 | Runs | Failed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New sandbox, ready to use | 1.5s | 12s | 393 | 56 of 425 |
| Create, then run a first command | 1.7s | 8s | 74 | 3 of 77 |
| Claude Code's first reply, from create | 3.4s | 12s | 45 | 3 of 48 |
| Codex's first reply, from create | 3.3s | 18s | 44 | 3 of 47 |
Production runs from 2026-11-02 to 2026-11-09, the same rows tangle.tools/benchmarks draws.
- Blaxel states "microVMs that boot in milliseconds and resume in ~25ms." (blaxel.ai)
- Blaxel states "Scale up to 100,000+ sandboxes or agents and up to 512 TB of storage with a tier-based quota system." (blaxel.ai)
- Blaxel states "Sapiom ran 2.5 million of them on Blaxel", as a customer volume. (blaxel.ai/blog/blaxel-is-joining-baseten-to-build-the-future-of-agentic-infrastructure)
These are different tests, and we have not run Blaxel through our benchmark.
Prices are on each pricing page
Tangle: plans and the rate card. Blaxel: blaxel.ai/pricing.