Container vs MicroVM

A container is an isolated process that shares the host kernel. A microVM is a small virtual machine with its own kernel. A microVM puts one more layer between sandbox code and the host.

Updated Oct 13, 2026

Container

Shares the host kernel and runs any OCI image.

Type: Container
Own kernel: No
Used by: Containarium Cloud, AgentBay, BytePlus AI Cloud Native Sandbox, Daytona, Beam Sandboxes, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform Code Execution, Upstash Box, Agent Sandbox, Depot Agent Sandboxes, Sandock

What is a container?opencontainers.org

MicroVM

Each sandbox has its own kernel.

Type: MicroVM
Own kernel
Used by: Lizard Sandboxes, Koyeb Sandboxes, Celesto Cloud, Northflank Sandboxes, Prime Sandboxes, Isorun, Mosaic Sandbox, Oblien Workspace, CreateOS Sandbox, Fly.io Sprites, DigitalOcean Harness Runtime, Together Sandbox, boxd, microsandbox cloud, BoxLite Cloud, Declaw, E2B, HopX, InstaVM, Leap0, Superserve, Thunder Sandboxes, PandaStack Sandbox, LangSmith Sandboxes, Caged, Docker Sandboxes, Islo Sandboxes, Tensorlake Sandboxes, Cloudflare Sandbox, Azure Container Apps Sandboxes, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Code Interpreter, AWS Lambda MicroVMs, Deno Sandbox, Runloop, CoreWeave Sandboxes, Vercel Sandbox, Alibaba Cloud Agent Sandbox, Blaxel, Maritime, Nebius Sandboxes, OmniRun, RemoteHost, Unikraft Cloud

What is a microVM?

How they differ

5 fields, side by side

Field

Container

MicroVM

Kind: Container: Isolated process; MicroVM: Small virtual machine
Kernel: Container: Shared with the host; MicroVM: Own guest kernel for each sandbox
Runs: Container: Any OCI image; MicroVM: A disk image with a kernel
Needs hardware virtualization: Container: No; MicroVM: Yes
Examples: Container: Docker, OCI; MicroVM: Firecracker, Cloud Hypervisor

When the difference matters

A container shares the kernel of the machine it runs on. A microVM does not. Code that breaks out of its own environment still meets a separate kernel before it reaches the host. A container runs any OCI image as it is, which makes existing images easy to reuse.