Pilots vs E2B, a Sandbox That Can Become Production
Both pause a sandbox with its memory. Only one of them is also where the finished app runs.
E2B's sandboxes are microVMs that pause with their memory and resume quickly, which is the same foundation Pilots stands on. The two part ways at what a sandbox can become.
Everything said about E2B here was read from its own pages in September 2026, and links to the page it came from.
What the two agree on
- One microVM per sandbox. Untrusted code gets its own kernel, not a shared one.
- Pause keeps memory. E2B's persistence preserves the filesystem and the memory, so running processes survive. So does Pilots' suspend.
- Snapshots and forks. Both can capture a running sandbox and start new ones from it.
- A sandbox has a URL. Both expose a port inside the sandbox over HTTPS.
Sandboxes, or sandboxes and a platform
E2B is a sandbox platform. It orchestrates microVMs for agents to run code in, and its documentation describes no platform for deploying and operating an application.
Pilots orchestrates the same kind of microVM and is both a sandbox, which is a disposable computer for any job, and a platform for running an application, with deploys, releases, replicas and custom domains. pilot promote turns a sandbox running your image into a production service in one call.
What a URL is for
An E2B address is built from a port and the sandbox's id. A new sandbox has a new id, so it has a new address. Putting your own domain in front of one means running a proxy yourself. E2B versions its templates with tags, and its documentation describes no releases, replicas or health-gated rollouts for a running application.
On Pilots a machine's URL is minted from its name and never changes. It survives suspend, restore, redeploy and a move to another host. pilot promote gives the sandbox releases, a health gate, replicas and rollback, at the same address, and a custom domain is one command and one DNS record.
What is on by default
E2B sessions have a ceiling that depends on the plan, an hour on the free plan and a day on Pro, reset by a pause and a resume. By default a sandbox that times out is killed. Pausing on timeout is an option you set, and so is waking a paused sandbox on the next request.
On Pilots both are the default, and there is no session ceiling. A machine suspends by itself after a minute of quiet, wakes on the next request or command, and stays yours until you destroy it.
How you drive it
E2B is driven from your code, through SDKs for Python and JavaScript, and it has a CLI for sandboxes and templates. Its MCP server for driving sandboxes is archived.
Pilots is built to be driven by an agent directly. Its CLI covers every operation, and its MCP server covers all of them except the few where a secret would pass through the model. It has SDKs too, in JavaScript, Go, Python and Elixir.
What a sandbox is for
On both platforms a sandbox is a real computer and not only a code interpreter. A Pilots sandbox runs Linux with root access, so you install what the job needs, and it has a permanent address while it does the job.
An agent can run in one with its permission prompts off, since unsafe code costs a disposable machine and not your laptop. A fleet of them can each drive a real browser through your product the way a person would, report what went wrong, and together show how the product behaves when every one of them is using it at once.
What Pilots is built for
- You want to run an agent with its permission prompts off, somewhere it can do no harm.
- What was built in the sandbox is an app, and you want it live at a permanent address without a second platform.
- You need durable storage attached to a sandbox now. E2B's volumes are in private beta.
- You want sandboxes with no cap on running time, that suspend and wake by default.
- You want one platform for the experiment and for production.
Neither platform has GPUs. E2B's documentation says its sandboxes are CPU only, and the same is true of Pilots.
Questions people ask
Can I host a production app on E2B?
No. A sandbox's address contains its id, and E2B's documentation describes no releases, replicas or health-gated rollouts for a running app. Pilots promotes a sandbox into a production service at the same URL.
Do E2B and Pilots both preserve memory when a sandbox pauses?
Yes. Both keep the filesystem and the memory, so running processes resume. On Pilots pausing and waking are the default, and on E2B they are options you set.
Is Pilots open source like E2B?
No. E2B publishes its runtime under the Apache 2.0 license and supports running it yourself. Pilots is a hosted platform.
Every comparison, or install the CLI and hold Pilots against your own app.