InstaVM vs Relay: Features, Pricing & Which Is Better (2026)
A side-by-side comparison of InstaVM and Relay — features, pricing, and ideal use cases — to help you decide which AI tool fits your workflow.
InstaVM
InstaVM
Production sandbox and control plane to run AI agents as isolated, observable, and controlled microVM servers.
Key features
- Firecracker MicroVMs: Runs agents inside Firecracker microVMs with sub-200ms boot times to deliver near-instant isolated execution environments for short-lived or bursty agent workloads.
- Production Control Plane: Provides server-like controls for agents including lifecycle management, restart policies, and operator workflows so agents can be run and managed like production services.
- Persistent Snapshots & Sessions: Snapshot and restore VM state and agent sessions to reproduce behaviors, debug failures, and roll back to known-good states for deterministic troubleshooting.
- Access & Egress Controls: Fine-grained controls for SSH access, network egress, and resource shares to limit what agents can access and monitor outbound communications for safety and compliance.
- CLI and SDK Integrations: ships a CLI and Python SDK for orchestration-heavy tasks and operator workflows, enabling automated creation, orchestration, and monitoring of agent VMs.
- Skills & Plugin Surface: Provides an installable skill (use-instavm) and integrations with Claude Code and other agent marketplaces to allow agents to leverage VM capabilities (storage, snapshots, SSH) from skill frameworks.
- Local Sandbox for Autonomous Workflows: Supports frameworks (e.g., clickclickclick) for enabling autonomous Android and desktop automation under controlled, reproducible environments.
- Open Agent Provider Defaults: Defaults to OpenAI Agents’ sandbox-provider path while allowing raw HTTP or custom integrations for other LLMs and agent runtimes.
- Firecracker microVM-based sandboxing with sub-200ms boot times
- Control plane for running agents as isolated, observable, and controlled services
- Support for sessions, VMs, snapshots, SSH access, egress controls, shared folders, and persistent volumes
- Operator CLI (instavm) for quick workflows
- Python SDK for orchestration and programmatic control
- Skills/Plugin integration (instavm/skills) compatible with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and other skills-enabled agents
- Defaults agent creation to OpenAI Agents sandbox-provider path with raw HTTP only for confirmed gaps
- Support for autonomous Android/computer automation via clickclickclick framework
- Infrastructure references and docs covering access, CLI, compute, hosting, platform, setup, and storage
Best for
- Safe Agent Development: Develop and test autonomous agents locally inside microVM sandboxes to validate behaviors and prevent accidental access to developer machines or production data.
- Reproducible Debugging: Capture VM snapshots and agent sessions to reproduce bugs, inspect intermediate state, and iterate on agent reasoning or tool usage deterministically.
- Productionizing Agent Services: Run long-running or scheduled agents with production-grade lifecycle management, observability, and restart controls to serve user requests reliably.
- Security-First Execution: Constrain agent network egress and provide SSH-only access to analyze agent activity, enforce policies, and meet compliance requirements for sensitive workloads.
- Integrating with Agent Marketplaces: Install InstaVM skills/plugins (e.g., Claude Code marketplace) so marketplace agents can orchestrate VMs, volumes, and snapshots as part of their workflows.
- Autonomous Automation Testing: Use InstaVM with frameworks like clickclickclick to run automated Android or desktop tasks in isolated VMs for end-to-end agent-driven automation testing.
- Safely execute untrusted or experimental agent code in isolated microVMs
- Run and monitor production-grade autonomous agents with observability and access controls
- Create reproducible agent environments using snapshots and persistent volumes for debugging and audits
- Orchestrate multi-step agent workflows from Python or CLI tooling
- Integrate agent sandboxing into Claude Code or other skills/plugin ecosystems
R
Relay
Relay
AI phone receptionist that builds itself from a business's website to answer every call and book, reschedule, or cancel appointments 24/7.
Key features
- One-Click Build: Paste a website and Relay drafts the agent profile, knowledge base, prompt, and call wiring in about 38 seconds.
- 24/7 Call Answering: Picks up every call day or night in the caller's local time, with no voicemail or hold music.
- Real Calendar Booking: Checks live availability and writes appointments, reschedules, and cancellations directly to the business's existing booking system.
- Booking Integrations: Connects to 7+ systems including Google Calendar, Square, Calendly, Outlook, Housecall Pro, Workiz, and Vagaro with one sign-in.
- Grounded Answers: Answers caller questions from the business's own facts and knowledge base rather than guessing.
- No-Config Setup: Requires no dashboards, prompt engineering, or manual call-flow building.
Best for
- Missed-Call Recovery: Capture bookings from calls that would otherwise ring out when staff are busy or closed.
- Appointment-Based Businesses: Let salons, clinics, and home-service providers automate booking, rescheduling, and cancellations by phone.