Modal Sandboxes
https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox
Modal Labs ships a serverless container platform with first-class GPU support; Sandboxes feature (2024) adds ephemeral, AI-agent-friendly compute sandboxes. Founded 2021 by Erik Bernhardsson (ex-Spotify ML, author of Luigi + Annoy). $87M total raised through Series B (Lux Capital + Redpoint + Definition + Amplify). Used by major LLM apps for batch inference + agent code execution.
Active · Verified 2026-10-27 · fresh as of 2026-10-27 · 30 cited facts, 1 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Tier
- T1
- Created
- 2021 (Modal founded); 2024 (Sandboxes feature) vendor fix
- Latest release
- v1.6.2 (2026-10-16) registry fix
- License
- Apache-2.0 (client SDK only; platform proprietary) repo fix
- Pricing
- Pay-per-second compute (CPU + GPU); free tier (~$30/mo credit); team + enterprise tiers vendor fix
- Funding
- $87M total raised; Series B Sept-2024 led by Lux Capital + Redpoint; ~$1.1B valuation vendor fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-27 fix
- Layer
- agent-infra repo fix
- Licensing
- commercial vendor fix
- SDK languages
- go, python, typescript vendor fix
- Compliance
- soc2-type2 vendor fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 1.38 (12-mo avg 20.39) · 13 participants — 2026-09 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: serverless GPU + general-purpose agent sandboxes; batch inference + AI app backends
Anti-fit: not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
Pros & cons
Pros
Best-in-class serverless GPU support (A100 / H100 on-demand); Sandboxes are general-purpose (not just code-exec); large LLM-app customers (Suno, Ramp, Anthropic workloads); $1.1B valuation; Erik Bernhardsson founder pedigree.
Cons
Managed-only (no self-host); GPU pricing premium; sandbox feature newer than e2b; Python-only SDK.
Claims & capabilities
$87M total raised (Series B Sept-2024 led by Lux Capital + Redpoint; $1.1B reported valuation); founded 2021 by Erik Bernhardsson (ex-Spotify ML); Sandboxes feature 2024; serverless GPU + container runtime
Technical surface
- API surface
- Python SDK (primary); REST API
- Backend storage
- not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
- Deployment
- Managed cloud (no self-hosting)
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
- MCP
- not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
- A2A
- not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
- OpenTelemetry
- not applicable — sandbox/runtime, not memory product
Compare Modal Sandboxes with…
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Daytona is secure, elastic sandbox infrastructure for running AI-generated code and agent workflows (isolated sandboxes with snapshots, volumes, computer use, MCP server). Pivoted from an open-source cloud development environment; as of June 2026 core development moved to a private codebase and the daytonaio/daytona repo was archived (2026-10-03). SDKs, API clients and CLI/MCP tools are published in the open daytona/clients repo. Founded by the ex-Codeanywhere team (Ivan Burazin).
- e2b T1
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- Anchor (Anchor Browser) T3
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- CodeSandbox AI T2
CodeSandbox is the long-running browser-based dev sandbox (founded 2017 by Ives van Hoorne + Bas Buursma in Amsterdam). **Acquired by Together AI Oct-2024** to anchor Together's agent-execution stack alongside its GPU inference cloud. AI features include AI-assisted coding, agent-execution sandboxes, and instant-preview for AI-generated apps.
Sources (29 cited facts, 1 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Serverless container runtime + AI-agent sandboxes (Modal Labs) vendor
- What it does & what's distinct Modal Labs ships a serverless container platform with first-class GPU support; Sandboxes… vendor
- Claims / benefits $87M total raised (Series B Sept-2024 led by Lux Capital + Redpoint; $1.1B reported valu… vendor
- Created 2021 (Modal founded); 2024 (Sandboxes feature) vendor
- Latest release v1.6.2 (2026-10-16) registry
- License Apache-2.0 (client SDK only; platform proprietary) repo
- GitHub modal-labs/modal-client — ~530 stars, last commit 2026-10 repo
- Funding $87M total raised; Series B Sept-2024 led by Lux Capital + Redpoint; ~$1.1B valuation vendor
- Customers / scale Suno (AI music), Ramp, Anthropic (some workloads), Cursor (some indexing), Substack, Car… vendor
- Pricing Pay-per-second compute (CPU + GPU); free tier (~$30/mo credit); team + enterprise tiers vendor
- Compliance SOC 2 Type II; HIPAA available; GDPR vendor
- Data handling Ephemeral (sandboxes); never trains on customer code; data residency US/EU options vendor
- Deployment Managed cloud (no self-hosting) vendor
- HQ New York, US vendor
- Founders / pedigree Erik Bernhardsson (CEO; ex-Spotify ML Head, author of Luigi + Annoy); Akshat Bubna (CTO) vendor
- API surface Python SDK (primary); REST API vendor
- Runtimes Python, TypeScript, Go vendor
- Optimised for serverless GPU + general-purpose agent sandboxes; batch inference + AI app backends vendor
- Adjacent infrastructure Replicate (closest serverless-GPU competitor); RunPod; Lambda Labs; competes with e2b on… vendor
- Pros Best-in-class serverless GPU support (A100 / H100 on-demand); Sandboxes are general-purp… vendor
- Cons Managed-only (no self-host); GPU pricing premium; sandbox feature newer than e2b; Python… vendor
- Project & sources modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox vendor
- architecture-deployment-locus cloud vendor
- licensing-bucket commercial vendor
- positioning-platform-vs-product platform vendor
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup agent-infra repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":17.21,"as_of":"2026-09","openrank_12mo":20.39,"openrank_current":1.38,"parti… third-party
- compliance-certifications soc2-type2 vendor
- sdk-languages go,python,typescript vendor
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
Related systems
Referenced by (4)
- Mastra integrates with — Mastra repo ships the @mastra/modal workspace package (Modal cloud sandbox provider). (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenAI Agents SDK integrates with — OpenAI Agents SDK sandbox clients docs list ModalSandboxClient (openai-agents[modal]). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Pydantic-AI integrates with — Pydantic AI harness docs have a Modal sandbox integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- smolagents (Hugging Face) integrates with — smolagents secure code execution docs have a Modal sandbox setup section. (verified 2026-10-29)