On 23 June 2026, AWS shipped Lambda MicroVMs: isolated VMs you launch, suspend, resume and terminate through an API, built explicitly for "workloads that execute user- or AI-generated code." Up to 16 vCPUs, 32 GB of memory, 8 hours of runtime, a dedicated HTTPS endpoint per VM.

We've been shipping that product for a while. So has E2B, so has Modal. The interesting thing about the launch isn't that AWS caught up - it's that the biggest infrastructure company in the world looked at agent sandboxes, agreed with the design, and then shipped it with one European region and a price roughly three times ours per vCPU.

That's the whole post. If you want an AWS Lambda MicroVMs alternative, "can anyone else do this" isn't the question - the isolation technology is literally the same on both sides. The questions are who operates the machine, where in Europe you can put it, and what it costs to leave running. AWS wins some of these outright, and we'll say where.

The short verdict

Pick Lambda MicroVMs if you're already deep in AWS, need more than 4 vCPUs or 8 GB in a single sandbox, or your agent has to reach private resources inside your VPC. The IAM integration and the size of the fleet are real advantages.