E2B vs mirage
E2B is much bigger: 13.7k stars against 3.6k. Over the days we have tracked them E2B moved +4.7% and mirage +16.6%, so mirage is growing faster right now.
They split the axes: E2B leads on model freedom, mirage on context depth and noise control and customization.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
Provides secure, isolated cloud sandboxes for running AI-generated code with SDKs for JavaScript and Python, allowing real-world tool access in a managed environment.
- Stars
- 13.7k
- Tracked growth
- +4.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 18h ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- E2B cloud (API key); self-hostable
Mounts dozens of services (S3, Slack, Gmail, databases, etc.) side-by-side as a single POSIX-like virtual filesystem so agents can use bash-native pipelines across backends.
- Stars
- 3.6k
- Tracked growth
- +16.6%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 24m ago
- Language
- TypeScript
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Free, self-hosted; external API costs apply
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | E2B | mirage |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Command-only | ●●●●● Whole workspace |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● None | ●●●●● Basic filters/config |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Minimal config | ●●●●● Extensible commands |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Bring-your-own-key | ●●●●● Multiple adapters |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● API key + SDK | ●●●●● CLI / SDK quickstart |
Which one to pick
Pick E2B if…
Secure sandboxing — choose E2B when you need to execute AI-generated code safely in isolated sandboxes with an option to self-host your infrastructure.
- Model freedom: Bring-your-own-key (5/5 against 3/5)
Pick mirage if…
Unified VFS — pick Mirage when you want agents to access remote services and local files through one POSIX-style filesystem, enabling cross-backend commands, portable workspaces, and embeddable runtimes.
- Context depth: Whole workspace (5/5 against 1/5)
- Noise control: Basic filters/config (3/5 against 1/5)
- Customization: Extensible commands (5/5 against 2/5)
What people want from each one
e2b-dev/E2B
strukto-ai/mirage
Hacker News: Mirage – A programming framework for building type-safe, modular systems drew 317 points and 88 comments.
Questions people ask
Is E2B better than mirage?
They split the axes: E2B leads on model freedom, mirage on context depth and noise control and customization. E2B is worth picking when secure sandboxing — choose E2B when you need to execute AI-generated code safely in isolated sandboxes with an option to self-host your infrastructure.
Which of E2B and mirage keeps my code private?
E2B: Self-hostable (4/5). mirage: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
E2B: E2B cloud (API key); self-hostable. mirage: Free, self-hosted; external API costs apply.
Full profiles: e2b-dev/E2B and strukto-ai/mirage. Everything else in Runtimes & sandboxes.