What are the best open-source sandboxes for AI agents?
The best open-source sandboxes for AI agents are E2B Runtime and microsandbox for microVM isolation, Kata Containers for Kubernetes shops, and OpenHands or LLM Sandbox when a container is enough. If you would rather not run KVM hosts, Nodus Sandboxes are the managed option, with networking off by default and a 2 vCPU, 4 GiB sandbox listed at $0.0357/hr on the Nodus pricing page. Self-host when…
Here are the best open-source sandboxes for AI agents, based on the information from their GitHub repositories and documentation as of November 12, 2026:
1. E2B Runtime - This is a fully-featured open-source solution that runs each sandbox in its own Firecracker microVM, with its own cgroup and network namespace. It provides per-sandbox network firewalling and supports Docker Compose or Terraform for deployment. It's the closest to a finished product but requires significant setup.
2. microsandbox - A lightweight library that allows spawning microVMs from your own code with no long-running daemon. It runs standard OCI images and keeps secret keys outside the VM. However, it's still in beta with breaking changes possible.
3. Kata Containers - A good fit for platform teams already running Kubernetes. It plugs in as a containerd runtime, giving each workload its own guest kernel while looking like a container to the cluster. You still need to build the agent-facing parts yourself.
4. OpenHands - A great choice if you're already using the OpenHands SDK for your agents. It includes an agent server that starts a container with the agent server inside and removes it when the work ends. There's also a variant that runs rootless on shared HPC machines.
5. LLM Sandbox - A Python code-interpreter library that can be used with different backends like Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, Bubblewrap or NsJail. It's flexible but not a full sandbox solution by itself.
When choosing a sandbox, consider how much you want to build yourself. E2B Runtime is the closest to a finished product, while the others offer more flexibility but require more effort to set up. MicroVM projects like E2B Runtime, microsandbox and Kata Containers give each sandbox its own guest kernel, while container projects like OpenHands and LLM Sandbox share the host kernel.
Note that Daytona's open-source repository is no longer maintained, so it's best to avoid it for new projects. All of these projects provide CPU-only isolation, as GPU support is not widely documented.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
