Modal Labs

license

Proprietary

source

closed

service

proprietary Modal managed cloud (no self-host of the gVisor execution plane)

open-part

client SDK only (modal Python/JS client libraries)

pricing

pay-as-you-go usage, free starter credits

Closed managed service. The client SDK is open, but the execution substrate is a proprietary managed cloud with no self-host option, and an open client over a closed runtime is not open core. The contrast with E2B is the point: E2B ships self-hostable infrastructure, Modal does not.

• https://modal.com/pricing recorded 2026-06-04

  Modal is a managed proprietary cloud platform, pay-per-CPU-cycle, $30/mo free credits

• https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox recorded 2026-06-04

  Sandboxes = secure containers for untrusted agent code, driven via Modal SDK

• https://modal.com/pricing recorded 2026-08-13

  Three plans - Starter ($0 + compute, $30/mo free credits), Team ($250 + compute) and Enterprise (custom) - all metered against Modal's own cloud, with a separate Sandbox and Notebooks compute rate per core-second and GiB-second. Nothing on the page offers a self-hosted, on-premises or source-available deployment.

• https://modal.com/docs/guide/sandbox recorded 2026-08-13

  Redirects to /docs/guide/sandboxes. Sandboxes are still "secure containers for executing untrusted user or agent code on Modal", created only through the Python, JavaScript or Go SDK against Modal's service; no runtime is distributed to run elsewhere.