ProvidersChecked 2026-10-28
Firecracker machines with a browser desktop, sold as a subscription that is also a monthly credit.
Short answer: One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $20.00 a month here, the 4th cheapest of the 11 providers that run it as described. The AI model adds about $14.70 a month on top (GLM 5.3, 30 requests a day at 40k tokens each, median zero-retention price; from $6.84 at the cheapest host). Fits well: A real free plan: one 4 vCPU / 8 GiB machine that never converts and needs no card.
InstaBox sells full Linux virtual machines, one per AI agent, that boot in about a second, keep their disk between sessions, and can be paused with memory and running processes intact.
Each machine is a Firecracker microVM running Debian 13 with its own kernel, root, systemd and Docker. You drive it from a web dashboard, a CLI, a TypeScript SDK or plain HTTP, and you can watch or take over its graphical desktop.
The intended buyer is a team running coding or computer-use agents that needs a real machine per task, not a single shared dev box. InstaBox is not InstaCloud, InsForge's separate managed-backend product.
| Who it is for | Teams and individuals running agents that need a persistent, general-purpose Linux box with a browser and desktop, who are comfortable with a CLI or API. |
|---|---|
| Isolation | Firecracker microVM with its own kernel, root and passwordless sudo. Docker works. Templates are versioned images; you cannot bring your own OCI image. |
| Sizes | Fixed vCPU/RAM pairs by plan: Free is 4/8 only; Pro adds 2/4 and 8/16; Builder goes to 16/32; Team to 32/64. One disk at /data, 20 GiB by default, growable live to 200 GiB on Pro. |
| A personal agent here | About $20.00 a month for one always-on 2 vCPU / 4 GiB machine (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB), before the AI model. Change the numbers |
| Recommended in |
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Our reading of the sourced material on this page, not a provider claim.
| Model | Monthly subscription that is also a credit: $20, $100 or $500, reset monthly. |
|---|---|
| Meter | Per second while running, on the size you asked for: $0.004 per vCPU-hour, $0.00225 per GiB-hour, $0.00011 per GiB-hour of storage, $0.02 per GiB of egress. |
| While stopped | Storage only. Paused and stopped machines pay GiB-hours for their disk and snapshots; paused memory is not billed and does not count as stored data. |
| Plan fee | The plan fee is the credit. Usage comes out of it first, then pay-as-you-go, and unused credit expires at month end. |
| Minimum | $20 a month on Pro, or the free plan: one 4/8 machine, five snapshots, 100 GiB of egress a month. |
How InstaBox lets you try before paying is on Trials and free tiers.
| Dashboard | Yes, a full console: create a machine from a template with a button, start/stop/pause, open the Computer tab to click the Linux desktop, publish ports, save snapshots from the Playground, read metrics and billing. |
|---|---|
| Without code | Partly. Creating a machine, opening its desktop, using Chromium, publishing a port and saving a snapshot are all click-driven. Claude Code and Codex are preinstalled, so you can type a plain-English request into the box's terminal. There is no hosted agent product and no prompt-in, result-out API. |
| Signup | GitHub or Google. Whether a brand-new free account needs a card is not published: the pricing page says $0, while the API has a cardMissingAt state that blocks free machines. Paid plans subscribe by card in the dashboard. |
| Docs and support | 26 pages, each available as Markdown, plus an llms-full.txt bundle; every page states limits and failure modes. Support is email on paid plans, priority on Team, and there is a Discord. No public status page was found. |
Every capability the guide checks, with the catch where InstaBox's version falls short. Compare all providers
From the profile's company section: the legal entity, who funds it, and what a buyer can check before signing.
InsForge AI, Inc., a Delaware corporation. InstaBox is a product line, not a separate company.
“InsForge AI, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("InsForge," "we," or "us"), which operates InstaBox” instabox.sh docs-confirmed
Public launch 14 October 2026; pricing went live 19 October 2026. The company was founded in 2025.
“Since we launched on Oct 14, beta users have been using InstaBox for free.” instabox.sh docs-confirmed
$8M seed announced 29 September 2026; investors and valuation were not disclosed.
“InsForge raises $8M seed” dealroom.co third-party
6, per Y Combinator's directory and Dealroom. Founders are Hang Huang (CEO) and Tony Chang (CTO).
“Team Size: 6” ycombinator.com third-party
No status page. A 99.9% SLA is listed on Enterprise only, with no credits or measurement published.
“99.9% SLA” instabox.sh pricing-page
The Trust Center lists HIPAA only and describes InsForge, not InstaBox. No SOC 2 badge.
“InsForge is an AI‑native Backend‑as‑a‑Service platform that provides pre‑built backend components like databases, authentication, storage, serverless functions, and AI integrations.” app.vanta.com docs-confirmed
Displayed on insforge.dev, not on instabox.sh.
“Backed by Y Combinator” insforge.dev docs-confirmed
Shown as the research found them. A contradiction means the provider's own pages disagree; an open question means the answer is not published.
Marketing says fork a machine mid-run and copy a running machine in seconds, listing Running Processes. The docs say fork is snapshot save plus create, and a snapshot does not hold memory or running processes.
Earlier research found MaxRunMinutes defaulting to 480 for free machines in the API schema. On 29 October no docs or API page mentions it and the machines page says there is no forced TTL, so the guide no longer states a cap.
The ports page says a visit wakes an idle-paused machine; the OpenAPI says preview links remain offline until resumed.
The pricing page says $0 and Get started; the API has a card-missing state that makes free sandboxes answer 402. It may apply only to workspaces that once had a paid plan.
Home is /data/home, so saved GitHub, Claude, Codex, git and SSH logins travel into every machine built from a snapshot.
The Terms say the United States; there is no region selector. status.instabox.sh does not resolve.
List-price illustrations from the calculator, not quotes. Prices checked 29 October 2026.
A · 1,000 short tasks
$20.00
2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 10 GiB (plan: Pro)
B · One always-on box
$28.84
4 vCPU / 8 GiB / 50 GiB (plan: Pro)
C · Three hours a day
$20.00
2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB (plan: Pro)