Tangle vs Northflank: which sandbox for coding agents?
Pick Northflank for microVM sandboxes in your own cloud as well as its own, secrets added at egress, GPU sandboxes, and sandboxes with no time limit. Pick Tangle when you want coding agents installed in every sandbox, needing no model key, with one prompt call that returns the result, usage and cost.
Last checked November 10, 2026: each Northflank fact links the page it came from, read that day.
Pick Northflank when
- You need sandboxes in your own cloud account: Northflank runs the same runtimes on BYOC clusters. (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- You need GPU sandboxes: Northflank offers L4 to B200, on its cloud or on your own GPU nodes. (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- You need credentials that never enter the sandbox: Northflank can add secrets to outbound requests at egress. (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- You need sandboxes that stay up for weeks: Northflank sets no time limit and bills per second. (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
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)
- Your coding agent needs no model key: Tangle Router is the default, billed to your Tangle balance. (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/cloud-agents)
- 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)
Northflank and Tangle, row by row
| Feature | Northflank | Tangle |
|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Each sandbox runs in its own microVM on Cloud Hypervisor with its own guest kernel; GPU sandboxes run under gVisor (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | A container or a Firecracker microVM, chosen per sandbox (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/security) |
| Stop and resume | Pauses idle sandboxes to stop compute billing, and resumes them (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | 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) |
| GPUs | GPUs from L4 to B200, on Northflank Cloud or your own GPU nodes (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | A GPU lease from a GPU cloud provider, attached while a command needs it, with a spend cap and a time cap (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/gpu-leases) |
| Secrets | Secrets as environment variables or files, or added at egress so the value never enters the sandbox; workload identity issues short-lived tokens (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | Stored once; you choose whether the sandbox can read a secret or only the network proxy can (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/secrets) |
| Network | Network policies for ingress and egress by FQDN and IP range, mTLS between sandboxes, and Tailscale (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | Open, a strict allowlist, or blocked, changeable while the sandbox runs (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/egress) |
| Run records | Per-sandbox logs, metrics and cost (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | Every agent turn is traced, and an Intelligence report summarizes what the agent did (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/observability) |
| Your own cloud | Runs in your own AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle or bare-metal account, with an optional control plane in your own infrastructure (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | 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 | API, CLI, and JavaScript and Python clients (northflank.com/docs/v1/api/introduction) | TypeScript, Python (tangle-sandbox on PyPI) and the tangle CLI (docs.tangle.tools/sandbox/sdk-python) |
| Free start | Has a free Sandbox plan on Northflank Cloud with no card needed; see the pricing page for terms (northflank.com/pricing) | A Free plan with no included credit (tangle.tools#pricing) |
| Compliance | Lists SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA (and ISO 27001) (northflank.com/product/sandboxes) | 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.
- Northflank states "Ready in 0.8 seconds" for a sandbox, covering scheduling, VM boot and container start with a cached image. (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- Northflank states it can "Spawn millions of fast, secure sandboxes for agents, the code they generate, and dynamic environments." (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
- Northflank states "50,000+ environments in parallel for rollouts." (northflank.com/product/sandboxes)
These are different tests, and we have not run Northflank through our benchmark.
Prices are on each pricing page
Tangle: plans and the rate card. Northflank: northflank.com/pricing.