Daytona

Daytona is an open-source AI agent sandbox platform positioned as "AI-first infrastructure optimized for LLMs, agents, and evals". Each sandbox is a full composable environment — dedicated kernel, filesystem, and network stack with allocated compute — that an agent can create, configure, snapshot, copy, and resume. It's the go-to choice for persistent, stateful agent workspaces.

Key Features

• Full Composable Environments: Each sandbox gets a dedicated kernel, filesystem, and network stack with allocated vCPU/RAM/disk.
• ~90ms Creation: One of the fastest sandbox spin-ups in the category.
• Persistent Stateful Workspaces: Sandboxes run indefinitely; supports save, restore, and resume of any agent workflow.
• Snapshots & Forking: Checkpoint an environment mid-execution and fork it into parallel branches.
• Computer Use: Virtual desktops for Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android controllable via code.
• GPU Sandboxes: NVIDIA H100 (~$3.95/hr) and RTX PRO 6000 options for heavy workloads.
• Docker-Native: Docker-in-Docker, Dockerfiles, and Docker Compose supported out of the box.
• Broad SDK Coverage: First-party SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and Java — the widest in the category.
• Enterprise BYOC: Bring-your-own-compute with customer-managed infrastructure and zero cross-tenant risk.

Use Cases

Who Should Use This Tool?

• Coding Agent Teams: Agents that edit files, run processes, preserve state, and reproduce real project workspaces.
• Eval & Benchmark Teams: Long-running agent evaluations with reproducible environments (SWE-bench style).
• Computer Use Builders: Agents driving virtual desktops across multiple OSes.

Problems It Solves

1. Multi-turn state loss: Persistent workspaces survive across conversation turns without reprovisioning.
2. Reproducible evals: Snapshots and forking make benchmark environments consistent and parallelizable.
3. Environment sprawl: One platform for dev environments, GPU work, and computer use.

Pricing

Note: In June 2026 Daytona moved its production codebase to closed source with a cloud-only control plane; self-hosting the core platform is no longer available. Verify current terms before planning self-hosted deployments.

Advantages & Unique Selling Points

Compared to Competitors:

1. Built for long-lived work: Persistent, resumable environments rather than ephemeral snippets.
2. Widest SDK language coverage: Ruby, Go, and Java SDKs that competitors lack.
3. Computer use across OSes: Linux, Windows, macOS, Android virtual desktops.

What Makes It Stand Out:

• ~72,500 GitHub stars (AGPL-3.0) with an active community.
• $24M Series A (FirstMark with Datadog and Figma Ventures); $1M run rate in under 3 months.
• Used by LangChain, Writer, SambaNova.

Getting Started

Quick Start Guide

1. Sign up: Create a Daytona account and get free compute credits.
2. Install the SDK: npm install @daytonaio/sdk or the Python/Ruby/Go/Java SDK of your choice.
3. Create a sandbox: const sandbox = await daytona.create().
4. Run your agent: Execute commands, snapshot, fork, and resume as needed.

Integration

Integrates with:

• LangChain, Writer, SambaNova and other agent frameworks
• Docker, Docker Compose, Dockerfiles
• All major languages via first-party SDKs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Daytona open source?

The core platform moved to a closed-source, cloud-only model in June 2026. The GitHub repo (72K+ stars) remains a community reference, but verify current licensing and deployment options.

How fast do sandboxes start?

Daytona quotes sub-90ms sandbox creation.

Does it support GPUs?

Yes — NVIDIA H100 and RTX PRO 6000 GPU sandboxes are available.

Alternatives

If Daytona isn't the right fit, consider these alternatives:

• E2B: Firecracker microVM isolation with the strongest security boundary.
• Modal: GPU-heavy serverless sandboxes with gVisor isolation.
• Cloudflare Computer: Edge-native isolates with Durable Object persistence.

Tips & Best Practices

1. Snapshot before long tasks: Mid-execution snapshots let you fork or restore if an agent run goes wrong.
2. Use BYOC for sensitive workloads: Enterprise customer-managed compute eliminates cross-tenant risk.
3. Confirm isolation mode: The default is Docker-based (shared host kernel); configure stronger isolation explicitly for untrusted code.

Conclusion

Daytona is the sandbox platform for long-lived, stateful agent workspaces — full composable environments, ~90ms starts, snapshots and forking, GPU options, and computer use across four OSes. If your agents do multi-turn work in real project environments, Daytona is a proven, developer-friendly choice.