Deno Sandbox
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 12 cloud sandboxes by recommenders
Cloud sandboxes for running untrusted code, including AI agent code, that people find fast and easy to set up. Critics say it is expensive at scale and lacks some networking features.
Cloud sandboxes for running untrusted code, including AI agent code, that people find fast and easy to set up. Critics say it is expensive at scale and lacks some networking features.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Neat idea for agent sandboxes
“Very neat idea! I implemented it into my self hosted remote coding agent”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “i think the next best thing for sandboxes is, "vm as a library"”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Sandbox: Run untrusted AI code safely, fast” “Yeah, this is a really neat idea”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” Secret placeholders hide real secrets
“it does at least make it impossible for them to steal the secret permanently”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “Secret placeholders seems like a good design decision.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” Fast startup and snapshots
“now that I've got a snapshot set up it's a nice experience”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “it's much better to have something faster to start”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Sandbox: Run untrusted AI code safely, fast”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive, especially when scaling
“It's about 10x what a normal VM would cost at a more affordable hoster.”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “It's always the exorbitant price with such offerings.”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “seems expensive when scaling out”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” Does not solve local secrets
“It seems safer and simpler to, as others have mentioned, have a proxy that knows more about the context add the secrets to the requests.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox” “Not really a solution to the local secrets problem.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: enveil – hide your .env secrets from prAIng eyes” Not much faster than alternatives
“it wasn't much better than doing the daytona container myself”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Launch HN: Terminal Use (YC W26) – Vercel for filesystem-based agents” “10 seconds is actually not that impressive”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Deno Sandbox”
Other cloud sandboxes people recommend
The four most recommended other cloud sandboxes, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprites | 58 | 30 | 66% | 11 | 3 mo4 owners | — |
| E2B | 23 | 4 | 85% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Deno SandboxThis page | 21 | 9 | 70% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Freestyle Sandboxes | 20 | 8 | 71% | 2 | — | — |
| Agent37 | 15 | 2 | 88% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
25 of the 31 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The Sandbox one is a lot more mature and better thought out”
“They also have a new Deno sandbox feature which is great for running untrusted code”
“it wasn't much better than doing the daytona container myself”
“Not really a solution to the local secrets problem.”
“similar to Deno sandboxes”
“now that I've got a snapshot set up it's a nice experience”
“Very neat idea! I implemented it into my self hosted remote coding agent”
“It’s nice that Deno Sandbox already does this.”
“It's always the exorbitant price with such offerings.”
“It's about 10x what a normal VM would cost at a more affordable hoster.”
“doesnt this also potentially break HTTP semantics?”
“Secret placeholders seems like a good design decision.”
“I like that they provide a python sdk”
“we want everyone to be able to run our Sandboxes”
“It seems safer and simpler to, as others have mentioned, have a proxy that knows more about the context add the secrets to the requests.”
“it does at least make it impossible for them to steal the secret permanently”
“it definitely lacks some capabilities (like the ability to do direct TCP connections to Postgres, or direct IP connections.”
“10 seconds is actually not that impressive”
“every free service like this ever has been burned”
“seems expensive when scaling out”
“Yeah, this is a really neat idea”
“Deno Sandbox provides both.”
“this uses nested virtualization on GCP, which severely hurts performance”
“i think the next best thing for sandboxes is, "vm as a library"”
“it's much better to have something faster to start”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.