# InstaBox

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/instabox/ · added 2026-11-12 · updated 2026-11-12

**In short.** InstaBox (Cloud Linux machines for AI agents, United States): Self-serve paid plans on sale, November 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 2 founders; Y Combinator lists a team size of 6 in November 2026, and the company has 2 open roles. Launched July 2025; still running.

Cloud Linux machines for AI agents · United States · AI-native · team of 2 to 10 · still running · group: Developer tools and coding agents

- Outcome: Self-serve paid plans on sale, November 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: E; no revenue figure)
- Launch: July 2025; months from launch to the outcome: 15
- Team: 2 founders; Y Combinator lists a team size of 6 in November 2026, and the company has 2 open roles
- Outside funding: Y Combinator Spring 2026; no amount found
- Main factor: Own problem
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 3
- Tags: AI-native, Small team, Funded, Running, B2B, Developer tools

Links:

- Visit instabox.sh: https://instabox.sh/

**The product.** A cloud service that gives each AI agent a full Linux machine of its own. A developer or an agent starts a machine with one command, the command line, the API or an MCP server. An idle machine pauses and resumes later with its files and memory. Plans are Free, Pro, Builder and Team, with usage billed by the second.

**Why it worked.** The founders built InstaBox for a problem of their own: their laptops could not run many coding agents at once. Tony Chang wrote on 18 October 2026 that each person on the team ran about three agents at the start of 2026. After the agents moved to cloud machines in July, each ran about ten. InstaBox launched as a beta on 14 October 2026. Its pricing page of November 2026 lists Pro at US$20 a month and Team at US$500 a month.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

InstaBox sells microVMs to AI agents. A microVM is a small virtual machine that can pause and resume in under a second. Each machine has Debian Linux, Docker, a desktop and a browser for a coding agent, a program that writes and tests code on its own. The company is InsForge, Inc., and InstaBox is one of its products, next to a backend platform for coding agents.

Hang Huang and Tony Chang founded InsForge, which released its open-source version on 31 July 2025. An archived copy of its code page dated 3 August 2025 already describes it as a backend for AI agents. InstaBox started a free beta on 14 October 2026 and added paid plans on 20 October 2026. Y Combinator lists the company with a team size of 6.

No revenue figure was found, so the story is grade E. The headline is a status fact from the company's own pages. Free, Pro, Builder and Team plans exist, and a plan is bought by card or Alipay on a billing page. No source states that a customer has paid for InstaBox.

## Why did InstaBox work?

### The founders built it to fix their own agent bottleneck

Tony Chang wrote that his laptop froze at five agents and that agents shared ports and settings. In July 2026 the team moved its agents to cloud microVMs. He wrote that weekly GitHub contributions rose from about 580 to about 1,200 after the move. This is the company's own account.

### Idle machines pause, which keeps the free plan affordable

Hang Huang wrote that a machine pauses after 30 idle minutes and that its processor and memory then return to a shared pool. He said this lets the company oversubscribe its own bare-metal servers. The free plan is one 4 vCPU machine.

### It bills machines by the second while they run

The documentation says a paid machine is billed for its vCPUs and memory only while it runs. A paused machine costs only its disk. Each paid plan includes credits equal to its fee, so a small user pays the fee.

## How it was built

These details come from the company's blog, changelog and documentation. They are grade C.

- Tony Chang wrote that the control plane runs on Firecracker, a microVM monitor with native snapshots. A machine starts from a snapshot in under two seconds.
- The home page text says a machine is a Firecracker microVM that runs Debian 13 with Linux kernel 6.18.60 by default.
- A blog of 22 October 2026 says the company uses WorkOS for sign-in and to block spam sign-ups.
- The changelog says the documentation runs on Mintlify since 6 November 2026.
- Hang Huang wrote that the company runs on its own bare-metal servers.
- The company offers a command line, TypeScript and Python software kits, an MCP server, webhooks and a GitHub Actions runner.

Sources: [6, 1, 9, 3, 5]

## Who tried this before InstaBox, and why did they fail?

Three companies in our database of failed startups built cloud developer platforms and closed. The values below are from that database, were read on 12 November 2026 and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Nitrous.io (2012 to 2016; funding US$8.0M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Instant cloud development environments, a code-anywhere editor that removed local set-up.
- Why it died: The record says it was squeezed between Amazon's Cloud9, which Amazon could offer cheaply, and the bundling of developer tools into larger platforms.
- Record: 

### Parse (2011 to 2017; funding US$7.0M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A backend-as-a-service platform that let mobile developers skip building servers.
- Why it died: The record says Facebook bought it in 2013, then shifted its priorities, while Google's Firebase offered a free tier that Parse could not match.
- Record: 

### DotCloud (2008 to 2012; funding US$18.0M; cause: Pivot)

- Promise: A platform-as-a-service that spared developers from managing servers.
- Why it died: The record says the company turned to Docker, the container tool it created, and the original platform was left behind.
- Record: 

## What changed

The three records show two pressures. A larger company gave the same service away or bundled it, as the records say of Amazon and Google. Or the company's own technology became the better product, as Docker did for DotCloud. InstaBox sells machines that other clouds also rent.

The company's answer is the customer: AI agents that need a whole computer, paused when idle. Agent work comes in bursts, Hang Huang wrote. The sources do not show whether enough teams pay for that to last.

## Can one person copy InstaBox now?

**Verdict: The idea can be copied; the demand is not shown.**

A small team that runs many coding agents can sell the machines it built for itself. The sources show a price list, a billing page and a company that says it ran into the problem first. They show no revenue and no paying customer. A reader should treat this as a pattern, not as proof that it earns.

1. Run your own agents on isolated machines until the setup works for you.
2. Pause idle machines to return their processor and memory to a shared pool.
3. Offer a free machine so engineers can test it without paying.
4. Charge a monthly fee that includes usage, and bill the rest by the second.

**What is still open.** Machines for other long-running agent jobs: browser testing, mobile app testing, build servers and continuous integration.

## How much revenue does InstaBox make? The numbers, graded

A product of a company that two founders started in 2025, with a price list, a self-serve billing page and no revenue figure

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is sold | A Linux machine for each AI agent, billed by usage | C | The company describes a Firecracker microVM with 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB of memory by default. Y Combinator lists it as cloud computers for AI agents. | [1, 10] |
| Company and names | InsForge, Inc. is the company; InstaBox and InstaCloud are its products | C | The InstaBox blog says InstaBox is built by InsForge. The InsForge home page links InstaCloud in its footer. The InstaCloud page carries the copyright line of InsForge, Inc. Y Combinator shows the company as InstaBox. | [7, 16, 19, 10] |
| Start | Founded in 2025; open-source release on 31 July 2025 | C | Y Combinator says Founded: 2025. The founder wrote that the open-source version of InsForge launched on 31 July 2025. An archived copy of insforge.dev dated 18 February 2025 is titled "InsForge \| No-code Backend". No earlier name was found. | [10, 12, 21, 17] |
| Agents from the first release | Yes, in the code page of 3 August 2025 | C | The archived GitHub page calls InsForge "the Agent-Native Supabase Alternative" and tells the reader to connect an AI agent to it. | [14] |
| InstaBox beta and launch | 14 October 2026 | C | Hang Huang wrote on 19 October 2026: "Since we launched on Oct 14, beta users have been using InstaBox for free." | [5] |
| Founders | Hang Huang, founder and CEO; Tony Chang, founder and CTO | C | Y Combinator lists both as active founders. Both write the company's blog posts. | [10, 4] |
| Team size | 6 per Y Combinator; 2 open roles | C | Y Combinator lists Team Size: 6. The careers page of InsForge lists two open roles. The company published no headcount. | [10, 18] |
| Funding | Y Combinator Spring 2026; no amount found | C | Y Combinator lists the batch, and the InsForge home page says Backed by Y Combinator. No funding amount or investor was read. | [10, 16] |
| Prices | Pro US$20 a month; Builder US$100; Team US$500 | C | The company's documentation lists these plans and the unit prices. Each paid plan includes credits equal to its fee. | [2, 1] |
| How a plan is bought | Card on the Billing page; Alipay for Pro and Builder | C | The changelog says to subscribe with a card on the Billing page. A blog of 5 November 2026 adds Alipay at checkout. | [3, 8] |
| Open-source traction | 13,300 stars on the InsForge repository | C | The GitHub page showed 13.3k stars on 12 November 2026. The founder wrote that the project had 500 stars two weeks after its release. | [15, 12] |
| Beta use | 75% of beta users had one active machine | C | Hang Huang stated this in the pricing blog of 19 October 2026. No count of users was given. | [5] |

How to read this table. Grade C means the company or a directory states the value. No value here is grade A or B. No value is calculated on this page.

## Pricing

InstaBox prices read from its pricing documentation and the Markdown copy of its home page on 12 November 2026 (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free |  | 0 | 1 machine of 4 vCPU and 8 GiB; 5 snapshots; paused after 30 idle minutes; 100 GiB egress a month |
| Pro |  | 20 plus usage | US$20 of credits; up to 100 machines at once; machines up to 8 vCPU and 16 GiB; email support |
| Builder |  | 100 plus usage | US$100 of credits; up to 200 machines at once; machines up to 16 vCPU and 32 GiB |
| Team |  | 500 plus usage | US$500 of credits; up to 500 machines at once; machines up to 32 vCPU and 64 GiB; priority support |
| Usage: vCPU |  | 0.004 per vCPU-hour | Billed by the second, only while a machine runs |
| Usage: memory |  | 0.00225 per GiB-hour | Billed by the second, only while a machine runs |
| Usage: egress |  | 0.02 per GiB | Beyond the plan's monthly egress; ingress is free |

The documentation says each paid plan includes monthly credits equal to its fee, and usage beyond them is billed at the unit prices. Only a monthly price is published. Enterprise has no published price. Early accounts keep five free machines until 1 December 2026.

## When did InstaBox launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From an open-source backend in July 2025 to a priced cloud-machine product in October 2026.

- **31 July 2025** (grade C [12]): The founders release the open-source version of InsForge with authentication, a database and file storage.
- **18 November 2025** (grade C [13]): The company announces the official launch of InsForge, a backend for AI coding agents, and names Zeabur and Peak Mojo as early users.
- **18 May 2026** (grade C [11]): The company posts its Launch YC page for InsForge, written by Hang Huang and Tony Chang.
- **14 October 2026** (grade C [5]): InstaBox launches as a free beta for cloud machines for AI agents.
- **20 October 2026** (grade C [3, 5]): The company adds Free, Pro, Team and Enterprise plans, with Pro at US$20 a month and Team at US$500 a month.
- **3 November 2026** (grade C [3]): The company adds a Builder plan at US$100 a month between Pro and Team.

## What could go wrong for InstaBox?

- **What is not verified.** No revenue figure was found, so the story is grade E. The InstaBox home page text, documentation, blog, changelog, Y Combinator page and InsForge pages were read. A reader could look for a press interview or a payment-processor statement. No source states that a customer has paid. The 75% beta-user figure and the weekly contribution counts are the founders' own statements.
- **Names, a sister product and a waitlist.** The Y Combinator launch post of 18 May 2026 speaks of InsForge, and the company page now shows InstaBox. InsForge also lists InstaCloud, a separate product. InstaBox used a waitlist and invite codes in October 2026. Hang Huang wrote on 22 October 2026 that Pro users skip the waitlist. The newest dated mention of the waitlist is a blog of 23 October 2026. The documentation still lists an error named "invite_required", so a free account may still need an invite code.
- **Badges, counters and quotations have no second source.** The company says it is built by InsForge, which "completed a SOC 2 Type II audit". No report was read. The same blog shows SOC 2 and HIPAA badges in the site footer. The InsForge home page shows counters of projects, database size, storage and egress with no readable values. It also shows eight quotations from X posts about InsForge, which were not checked on X. The InstaBox home, terms and privacy pages need a script. Only the Markdown copy of the home page was read.
- **Free machines attracted abuse.** Hang Huang wrote that bots signed up hundreds of accounts to mine cryptocurrency, which broke the terms. The company limited the free plan to one machine. A later blog says WorkOS helps block spam sign-ups. The sources show no regulator or store action against the product.

## Sources

1. InstaBox home page as Markdown (llms.txt) — https://instabox.sh/llms.txt (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. The home page needs a script, so this is its text copy. Source for the product, machine, plans and unit prices.
2. InstaBox documentation: Pricing — https://instabox.sh/docs/account/pricing.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the plans, the included credits, the unit prices and the free-machine rule.
3. InstaBox changelog — https://instabox.sh/changelog.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the plan dates, the card checkout, the Builder plan and the Mintlify documentation.
4. InstaBox blog index — https://instabox.sh/blog.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the post dates and authors, the earliest on 2 September 2026.
5. InstaBox blog, 19 October 2026, by Hang Huang: InstaBox Pricing — https://instabox.sh/blog/instabox-pricing.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the 14 October 2026 launch, the free plan, idle pausing, abuse and beta use.
6. InstaBox blog, 18 October 2026, by Tony Chang: Why We Moved Our Coding Agents to the Cloud — https://instabox.sh/blog/why-we-moved-our-coding-agents-to-the-cloud.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the founders' own agent problem, Firecracker and the contribution counts.
7. InstaBox blog, 10 November 2026, by Tony Chang: Our Trust Center Is Live — https://instabox.sh/blog/trust-center.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for InsForge as the builder of InstaBox and the SOC 2 statement.
8. InstaBox blog, 5 November 2026, by Tony Chang: Pay for InstaBox with Alipay — https://instabox.sh/blog/alipay.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for Alipay at checkout for Pro and Builder.
9. InstaBox blog, 22 October 2026, by Hang Huang: Secure Auth with WorkOS — https://instabox.sh/blog/workos.md (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for WorkOS, the waitlist and the Pro express lane.
10. Y Combinator company page: InstaBox — https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/instabox (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the founders, the batch, the year founded, the team size and the launch post.
11. Y Combinator Launch post: InsForge, the backend platform for AI-native developers — https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/QP6-insforge-the-backend-platform-for-ai-native-developers (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the authors and the post date of 18 May 2026.
12. InsForge blog, 21 August 2025, by Hang Huang: Focus or Die — https://insforge.dev/blog/focus-or-die (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the open-source release on 31 July 2025 and the 500 stars.
13. InsForge blog, 18 November 2025: InsForge Launch — https://insforge.dev/blog/insforge-launch (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the official launch and the early users named.
14. Internet Archive copy of the InsForge GitHub page, 3 August 2025 — https://web.archive.org/web/20250803175739/https://github.com/InsForge/InsForge (grade C). Read in full. Source for the agent-native description in the first week after the open-source release.
15. GitHub page: InsForge/InsForge — https://github.com/InsForge/InsForge (grade C). Read the top of the page on 12 November 2026. Source for the 13.3k stars and the Apache-2.0 license.
16. InsForge home page — https://insforge.dev/ (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the company name in the footer, the Y Combinator mark, the counters and the quotations.
17. InsForge blog index — https://insforge.dev/blog (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the earliest post, dated 21 August 2025.
18. InsForge careers page — https://insforge.dev/careers (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for the two open roles.
19. InstaCloud home page — https://www.instacloud.com/ (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Source for InstaCloud as a separate InsForge product.
20. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Record pages read on the website on 12 November 2026. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
21. Internet Archive copy of the InsForge home page, 18 February 2025 — http://web.archive.org/web/20250218081433/https://insforge.dev/ (grade C). Read in full on 12 November 2026. Only the page title could be read. Source for the InsForge name on the site before the open-source release.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run InstaBox? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: InstaBox).