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AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Lima-devbox – Claude skill for creating a VM dev sandbox on your Mac

As I've increasingly pursued orchestrated agentic coding - I needed a safe way to run Claude Code in YOLO mode on my mac. I looked at a lot of options including Docker but then came across Lima (Linux for Mac) and this great guide by Chris Hager on how create a dev sandbox for your mac using Lima. This creates an Ubuntu VM, mapped to your dev directory with RW access, port and SSH forwarding, Mise support for language installs and automatic code agent installs. https://www.metachris.dev/2025/11/sandbox-your-ai-dev-tools-... I followed his guide. Got it working on my…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 3 we have checked on their own sites, 3 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1
    1Code▲569

    Just to clarify the background a bit. This project wasn’t planned as a big standalone release at first. On January 16, Ollama added support for an Anthropic-compatible API, and I was curious how far this could be pushed in practice. I decided to try plugging local Ollama models directly into a Claude Code-style workflow and see if it would actually work end to end. Here is the release note from Ollama that made this possible: https://ollama.com/blog/claude Technically, what I do is pretty straightforward: - Detect which local models are available in Ollama. - When…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2
    Multitui▲126

    I made Multitui to control the sandbox of coding agents easily without changing my dev environment (no special container or VM). There's no configuration required in your local dev environment... just launch ClaudeCode.app instead of claude in your general terminal. Containers and VMs can be useful, but I always have a bunch of projects going and those solutions feel heavy. Multitui creates single-purpose native macOS apps for any terminal app, with optional sandbox. It uses the built-in macOS sandbox-exec along with log monitoring to give you an easy UI to manage rules, see what's being…

    Feb 2026 · multitui.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3
    Boxes.devfree tier, from $19/mo▲112

    Hi HN, we’re Nick and Drew, and we’re building boxes.dev – the first cloud-only agentic dev environment (ADE) that gives every Codex and Claude Code agent its own cloud computer. We’re two engineers who previously built Gem (co-founder/CTO and first hire), and we spent the last year coding almost exclusively using Codex and Claude Code. It’s been a huge change to how we code, and it’s been exhilarating seeing the models keep getting better – but we eventually realized that developing on localhost was holding us back: - Git worktrees are clunky to set up and use for parallelizing work -…

    Jun 2026 · boxes.dev · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    Rill Browserfree▲540

    The browser where Claude Code and Codex work beside you

    18d ago · rill.love · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    I've been working on CloudRouter, a skill + CLI that gives coding agents like Claude Code and Codex the ability to start cloud VMs and GPUs. When an agent writes code, it usually needs to start a dev server, run tests, open a browser to verify its work. Today that all happens on your local machine. This works fine for a single task, but the agent is sharing your computer: your ports, RAM, screen. If you run multiple agents in parallel, it gets a bit chaotic. Docker helps with isolation, but it still uses your machine's resources, and doesn't give the agent a browser, a desktop, or a GPU to…

    Feb 2026 · cloudrouter.dev · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    WASM sandbox for running LLM-generated code safely. Agents get a bash-like shell and can only call tools you provide, with constraints you define. No Docker, no subprocess, no SaaS — just pip install amla-sandbox

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Keystone▲125

    We kept hitting the same wall: you clone some arbitrary repo and just want it to run without any configuration work. So we built Keystone, an open source tool that spins up a Modal sandbox, runs Claude Code inside it, and produces a working .devcontainer/ config (Dockerfile, devcontainer.json, test runner) for any git repo. We build on the dev container standard, so the output works with VS Code and GitHub Codespaces out of the box. Main use cases: reproducible dev/CI environments, self-describing repos, and safely sandboxed coding agents. Our goal is to encourage all repos to…

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8
    Epho▲156

    Hey folks, Burak here. Epho is an API that allows running Claude Code, Codex or Opencode in a sandbox in the cloud. It abstracts away sandboxes, and allows running coding agents with a single HTTP request. Epho came out of our own struggles with building our own AI analyst: - Sandboxes give you bare machines; you need to configure them for agentic workloads. - Each agent behaves differently, and you need to build integrations with each of them. - Sandbox providers are not very reliable, which means you need to figure out a multi-provider strategy to avoid failures. - Logging, artifacts,…

    Aug 2026 · epho.io · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Never miss a Claude Code session waiting for your input

    Jul 2026 · agentmgr.app · its alternatives →

  10. 10MG

    Hello HN, I've been working on this project for a while, and it has been in an "open" beta for some time. I finally believe it's ready for its first release. I hope you like it. Here are some potential questions that may arise: 1. How does it compare to LM Studio? It's likely that if you're already using LM Studio, you'll continue to do so. This project is designed to be more user-friendly. 2. Is it open-source? No, it is not. 3. Does it use any open-source libraries? Yes, it uses llama.cpp and a few others, as indicated in the license information included with the application. 4. Why is not…

    2023 · avapls.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    flock▲79

    Run a flock of Claude Code (or other agents) in one window.

    Apr 2026 · baahaus.github.io · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    Scapefree tier, from $9.99/mo▲59

    Hey HN, we've been using Claude Code daily for months, and built Scape to fix our biggest pain point: managing multiple worktrees quickly & reducing the mental load of switching between them quickly. What we built: Scape is a macOS menu bar app that sits on top of Claude Code and gives you: - One-click worktrees: click a button, get a new git worktree with a Claude session already working on it. Develop in parallel without leaving your current branch. - Toolkit: per-session actions like "Create PR", "Commit & Push", "Run & Fix Tests." Add your own with bash scripts or prompts. -…

    23d ago · scape.work · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Agentic coding IDE for Mac

    Jun 2026 · builderstudio.dev · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Dev box for your coding agents to run 24/7

    Nov 2025 · pinacle.dev · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Wrapper around Apple's macOS sandbox-exec tool, which usually sandboxes native apps. It is "allow-first" i.e. it will not overprotect everything, just crucial information and therefore allows most tools to run without issues. Limiting is done using a .gitignore like file schema. Further TOML config options available. I built it because Docker sandboxing requires config and planning. Build in sandboxing of AI tools instead is limited to the very tools themselves, instead I wanted to have a simple cage around Claude running inside VSCode. Also needed to protect files inside a folder like…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16
    Aether▲26

    Since coding agents like Claude Code and Codex came out, I've been pretty obsessed with them. It's hard not to when you're getting a 20x discount on inference. I've also been frustrated by them a lot. I hated walking around with my laptop lid open while connected to a hotspot on my phone, having to tediously accept commands so I don't lose my root directory, and running out of RAM when running multiple agents that were spinning up dev servers in different worktrees at once. A lot of people would say existing cloud agents are the solution to this, as none of the above problems apply to any…

    Jul 2026 · runaether.dev · its alternatives →

  17. 17
    Moshi▲38

    I built an iOS app to interact with coding agents from my phone. Most remote solutions I've seen require installing a server or relay on your machine. Moshi is just an app — SSH/Mosh into your Mac/PC/Sandbox and you're done. The use case isn't really "I need to get back to my computer." It's more like: - I'm curious how the agent is doing on that refactor - I want Claude Code to research something for me (it knows my codebase, unlike a fresh chatbot) - I have an idea and want to tell the agent before I forget I just type what I want — or speak it. Whisper transcribes locally,…

    Jan 2026 · getmoshi.app · its alternatives →

  18. 18
    Skeezo▲10

    The agent-native macOS IDE that drives your installed Claude Code — parallel agent lanes, team chat, multi-repo workspaces, and automation. No API key.

    Sep 2026 · skeezo.dev · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    I built Claude‑CMD, an open-source command-line interface for working with Claude Code commands, configurations, and AI-driven workflows. It’s designed to help developers and PMs streamline how they interact with Claude Code in coding tasks, automation, and prompt management. Website: claudecmd.com Happy to answer questions or hear suggestions. You can also contribute your own commands to help improve the project. Contributions welcome!

    2025 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    I love Claude Code but got tired of having nothing to do while I waited for sessions to finish, and managing multiple sessions on the command line was getting annoying and I kept losing track of the tabs. I originally built a quick and dirty version of this for my own use, but decided to polish it up and make it open source. The idea is that you should be able to do all your agentic coding without leaving the tool or needing to go back to a traditional IDE. You can view the diffs, run your program, and merge your changes back. I support OSX and Linux right now, but could add Windows support…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hi HN, AgentBox is an SDK for running coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode) inside sandboxes (Docker, E2B, Modal, Daytona, Vercel). One API. Swap the agent or the sandbox and your code doesn't change. Think of it as what the AI SDK did for LLMs, but for agent + runtime. Most wrappers call agents in non interactive mode (claude --print, codex exec). AgentBox instead boots each agent's native server inside the sandbox (Codex app-server over JSON-RPC, OpenCode serve over HTTP/SSE, Claude Code's SDK WebSocket transport) and drives it from the host, behaving like an interactive…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Ash is a macOS sandbox that restricts AI coding agents. It limits access to files, networks, processes, IO devices, and environment variables. You can use Ash with any CLI coding agent by wrapping it in a single command: `ash run -- `. I typically use it with Claude to stay safe while avoiding repetitive prompts: `ash run -- claude --dangerously-skip-permissions`. Ash restricts resources via the Endpoint Security and Network Extension frameworks. These frameworks are significantly more powerful than the sandbox-exec tool. Each session is driven by a policy file. Any out-of-policy action is…

    Mar 2026 · ashell.dev · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    I explored how I can use AI when writing software beyond code completion, and I didn't like any of the UX I saw (maybe except Cursor). Well, I do all my work in vim. Claude knows how to use vim! And... you can do anything(!) from vim. Turns out, embedding Claude in vim means you get a fully agentic AI pair programmer in <1000 LoC. (See the GitHub README for examples of what "fully agentic" means.) And if you have some semantic vim tools (jedi.vim, eclim, ...) set up, Claude could use them if instructed. Unlike CLIs, you can review Claude's changes, and keep the chat history. So an editor…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24MO

    Hey everyone, We're excited to introduce MarinaBox, an open-source toolkit for creating isolated desktop&#x2F;browser sandboxes tailored for AI agents. Over the past few months, we've worked on various projects involving: 1. AI agents interacting with computers (think Claude computer-use scenarios). 2. Browser automation for AI agents using tools like Playwright and Selenium. 3. Applications that need a live-session view to monitor AI agents' actions, with the ability for human-in-the-loop intervention. What we learned: All these scenarios share a common need for robust infrastructure. So,…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

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