What it does
Sandstorm runs sandboxes, sealed-off spaces where AI agents can run programs safely, on servers. Its makers say agents spend much of their time waiting, so Sandstorm pauses idle sandboxes and saves them to disk. When a request arrives, it wakes the sandbox again quickly.
This lets one machine hold far more sandboxes than it could run at once. Sandboxes move through tiers: running, frozen in memory, saved to disk, or detached, where only the stored files remain.
One main machine (the master) places sandboxes across many other machines (nodes). It supports two kinds of sandbox technology, gVisor and Firecracker. A web console shows sandbox states and lets you manage them, and everything can also be controlled through an API, a doorway that lets programs talk to each other.
Who it's for
Engineers and teams who host many AI agent sandboxes and want to fit more of them on cheaper servers.
Can I use it without coding?
Developers only. You build it from source on Linux with Rust and Node, then run it from the command line on servers. New to this? Start here.
Can I run it?
- Cost
- FreeNothing to pay or sign up for.
- Runs on
- Linux, Server
- Computer
- Made for servers or data centres
- Privacy
- Runs on your own device: your data stays with you
- API key
- Not needed
Try it
Using Claude Code, Cursor or another AI coding assistant? Paste the prompt and it will walk you through the setup.New to this?
Before you install
- Only download from the official GitHub page. Copies with similar names exist for many popular projects.
- Plain-AyI is an independent guide and doesn't host or review the software it lists. Please check each project's official page before installing.
- License (Apache-2.0): Permissive: free to use, change and share, including for business.
- More on staying safe