MIOSA vs Boat

MIOSA vs Boat

Compare MIOSA withBoat

What Boat is

Boat sells cloud sandboxes: full Linux virtual machines with dev tooling preinstalled, which you can create, stop, resume, and fork through a CLI, an HTTP API, and Python and TypeScript SDKs. It is aimed at agent platforms and app builders, described in its public documentation at (docs.boat.dev, as of October 2026).

Price

The same machine shape, 4 vCPU and 8 GB of RAM, running, at each provider’s public list price, checked 2026-10-11.

On this shape Boat’s list price is about one-tenth of MIOSA’s, and it is the lower number in the pricing comparison on this site. Stated plainly: for raw sandbox time, Boat is much cheaper per hour.

The two figures are not billed the same way:

• Boat bills per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing. The hourly rate bundles compute and the disk the size allocates, and storage is free; automatic snapshots are free and named snapshots are free up to 10 ($1.70 a month each after that). Plan fees of $20, $100, $500, or $2000 a month return in full as sandbox time, with concurrency of 100, 300, 1,000, and 2,000 sandboxes. There are $20 credit packs, and a trial of 25 hours with up to 2 sandboxes at once.
• MIOSA bills per second while a machine runs, with compute, disk, and egress metered separately on one rate card. The $0.30 line is compute only; disk is metered on its own. See Pricing and limits.

So a real monthly bill depends on how long machines run, how much disk and egress you use, and which plan you are on. The rest of this page is what differs beyond the hourly number.

Measured performance

Boat does not appear in the independent ComputeSDK benchmark that MIOSA publishes, so there is no like-for-like startup or build number to put beside MIOSA’s here.

Source: ComputeSDK, via our benchmark page. Burst startup is the time from a create request to the first successful command inside a fresh sandbox, under 100 concurrent creates. Where a run is not listed, the provider did not appear in that run.

Boat publishes its own benchmark instead: it reports that on a Node.js build-and-test loop run across providers’ 4 vCPU / 8 GB machines, Boat finishes ahead of several other providers, and it links head-to-head pages against E2B, Daytona, Modal, and Vercel Sandbox (https://boat.dev/compare, as of October 2026). Those results are Boat’s own, run against its own workload, and are not restated here as independent figures.

Where MIOSA differs

These capabilities are documented for MIOSA on this site:

• Sandboxes and persistent computers in one platform, including a full Linux desktop. See Sandboxes and Computers.
• A browser with CDP inside a sandbox, for agent browsing and automation. See Browser use.
• A runtime picker: Firecracker is the default, and SOMA is in early access per organization. See Choosing a runtime.
• Deployments and App Engine, so a machine becomes an immutable, versioned URL with rollback and custom domains, not just a machine that runs. See Deployments.
• Agents with harnesses and approvals. See Agents in your product.
• Managed data with connection injection: Postgres, Redis, MySQL, and Qdrant, plus Fractal for enterprise. See Data.
• A white-label platform: your brand, domains, tenants, and scoped tokens on top of MIOSA. See White-label setup.
• One interface for everyone: MCP, a CLI, and six SDKs over the same API. See MCP, CLI, and SDKs.
• Bring your own cloud and your own machines through Regions and OpenComputers. See Regions and OpenComputers.
• Compliance: SOC 2 Type I complete and Type II in progress, with HIPAA supported under a BAA on Enterprise. See Security.

Where Boat leads

Boat documents capabilities that MIOSA does not document today. These are real differences:

• Nested virtualization. Boat supports running KVM, Firecracker, and the Android emulator inside a sandbox. MIOSA states that KVM and QEMU cannot run inside a sandbox. See Known limitations.
• Windows apps. Windows-only software runs under Wine, with tested-app recipes.
• A browser-only desktop view and recorded sessions. Boat streams a desktop over Moonlight (WebRTC) or VNC, adds a Chrome-only view, and can record sessions to MP4. MIOSA computers stream a desktop but are headed-only, video-only, and do not document session recording. See Computers.
• Snapshots you can copy or download. Boat saves disks continuously and can resume, fork, copy, or download a sandbox, with named templates shared between accounts by code. MIOSA documents snapshot create, list, restore, and fork, but not downloading a snapshot image. See Snapshots.
• A stable public HTTPS URL for a service, exposed from inside a sandbox.

When to choose each

• Choose Boat if the hourly price is the deciding factor, or if you specifically need nested virtualization, Windows apps under Wine, a browser-only or recorded desktop, or snapshots you can download. On those points Boat is the better fit.
• Choose MIOSA if you want one platform for sandboxes, full computers, agent runs, deployments, managed data, and a branded multi-tenant surface, with the measured startup figures above and the compliance posture in Security.

Sources

• Boat public documentation: https://docs.boat.dev (as of October 2026).
• Boat pricing and limits: https://docs.boat.dev/pricing (as of 2026-10-11).
• Boat’s own benchmark and comparisons: https://boat.dev/compare (Boat’s figures, as of October 2026).
• ComputeSDK benchmark results, via our Benchmark page (2026-10-09).
• MIOSA capabilities and limitations, as documented on this site (Known limitations updated 2026-10-11).