kosa8 vs Runloop

01The short verdict

Choose Runloop if

• you want a managed service that deploys into your own AWS, GCP or Azure account [2];
• you need many sandboxes at once: Runloop says 10k+ in parallel [1];
• you want agent and MCP gateways that keep credentials away from agents, as a managed feature [11];
• you need a SOC 2 Type II report today [4].

Choose kosa8 if

• code must stay on a laptop, your own servers or an air-gapped site [14];
• you need memory and running processes saved, not only disk [15];
• you want to fork a running sandbox into live copies [15];
• you want SDKs in Go, Ruby or Java as well as Python and TypeScript [15].

02Runloop and kosa8, feature by feature

Bracketed numbers point to the sources. "Not documented" means the vendor's own pages did not say on 2026-11-14; it does not mean the feature is missing.

03Where Runloop is stronger

• BYOC on three clouds. VPC deploy on AWS, GCP and Azure, and an AWS Marketplace listing [2]. kosa8's BYOC joins KVM Linux servers you run [14].
• Managed scale. Runloop states 10k+ parallel sandboxes and a 24/7 on-call team [1]; kosa8 Cloud defaults to 20 sandboxes per organization [16].
• Agent tooling. Agent and MCP gateways keep credentials out of devboxes [11].
• Compliance paperwork. A stated SOC 2 Type II [4]; kosa8 has no SOC 2 report yet [22].

04Where kosa8 is different

• Memory survives. Runloop suspend keeps disk, not memory [6]; kosa8 checkpoints keep memory and processes [15].
• Closed by default locally. kosa8 agent sandboxes start with the network closed except an allow-list; Runloop devboxes are unrestricted by default [7] [22].
• Runs offline. kosa8 works on one laptop or air-gapped with a signed licence [14].
• Verifiable audit on every plan, and an organization freeze on kosa8 Cloud [18].

05Moving from Runloop to kosa8

Runloop's quickstart creates a devbox, runs a shell line and shuts it down [12]. kosa8 Cloud has the same three steps.

Runloop, from its quickstart:

import { RunloopSDK } from '@runloop/api-client';
const runloop = new RunloopSDK();
const devbox = await runloop.devbox.create();
const result = await devbox.cmd.exec("echo 'Runloop!!'");
console.log('Output:', await result.stdout());
await devbox.shutdown();

The same on kosa8 Cloud (TypeScript, npm install @kosa8/sdk):

import { Kosa8Cloud } from '@kosa8/sdk';

const cloud = new Kosa8Cloud(); // reads KOSA8_API_KEY
const box = await cloud.sandboxes.create({ template: 'python' });
const r = await box.exec(['python3', '-c', "print('hello')"]);
console.log(r.exitCode, r.stdout);
await box.delete();

• devbox.cmd.exec('a shell line') becomes box.exec(['sh', '-c', 'a shell line']).
• devbox.shutdown() becomes box.delete(); devbox.suspend() becomes box.sleep() [15].
• Runloop's allowed_hostnames maps to --egress-allow on a local sandbox [17]; kosa8 Cloud has no egress setting yet [18].
• Blueprints map to kosa8 Cloud templates or to images you pull into a local sandbox.
• Each kosa8 Cloud exec runs in a fresh container on the sandbox's disk: files under /workspace persist between commands, background processes do not. A buffered exec stops at 90 seconds; send stream: true for longer commands [15].
• Templates today are base (Alpine), python (Python 3.12) and node (Node.js 22) [15].
• An organization runs up to 20 sandboxes at once on kosa8 Cloud unless you ask for more [16].

06Questions

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