Agentic Index
exe.dev vs Fly.io Sprites (2026)
Both vendors last verified
Both give each agent a persistent Linux computer with an HTTPS address and integrations whose credentials stay outside the machine, and they bill and idle differently. exe.dev sells a monthly pool of CPU and memory, from $15 a month, that runs as many always on VMs as fit, reached over SSH, with more than a hundred integrations injected at its edge, an LLM gateway, email for each VM, eight regions open to new accounts and Shelley, its own coding agent with a browser tool. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Fly.io Sprites pause about 30 seconds after activity stops and wake on the next request, bill CPU and memory only while awake, checkpoint the filesystem in about a second, and come with connectors, a hosted MCP server and SDKs in four languages. Choose exe.dev when always on VMs on a flat monthly price with a choice of region fit, and Sprites when machines should idle at no compute cost and wake on demand.
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. exe.dev and Fly.io Sprites are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,165 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose exe.dev if
- A flat monthly fee should cover a pool of always on VMs.
- VMs should run in one of eight regions open to new accounts, chosen per account or pool.
- Each VM should have its own email address to receive and reply to messages.
- A coding agent with a browser tool should already be running on every VM.
- Enterprise VMs should run on dedicated hardware or your own servers.
Choose Fly.io Sprites if
- Idle machines should stop compute charges within about 30 seconds and wake on the next request.
- Agents should checkpoint and restore their own filesystem from inside the machine.
- A hosted MCP server should let any MCP client create and manage machines.
- SDKs should cover Python, JavaScript, Go and Elixir.
- Your security review relies on Fly.io's SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA package.
| Feature | e exe.dev |
F Fly.io Sprites |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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exe.devIntegrations & Tool Calling Agents use outside services through integrations whose secrets stay on exe.dev's servers and are added to requests at the network edge, so the VM can call the service but cannot read the key. Built in types cover GitHub, Slack and Slack bots, Discord and Discord bots, S3 compatible storage, LLM providers, calls between VMs and tunnels to private networks, the catalog covers more than a hundred services, Google Calendar and Gmail let an agent add events and send email as the user, and workload identity federation covers AWS, Google Cloud, Anthropic, OpenAI and Tailscale. Integrations attach to VMs directly, by tag or to every VM. Sourceexe.dev/docs/integrationsread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesIntegrations & Tool Calling Agents call outside services through connectors without holding the credentials. An organization stores a credential once, by OAuth for services such as GitHub or with a key, and the Sprite reaches the service through Fly.io's gateway, which identifies the calling Sprite, checks the connector's access policy and attaches the credential. The catalog holds more than 40 connectors, including GitHub, Slack, Notion, OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Supabase, Neon, Composio and S3 compatible storage, a Custom API connector covers any token authenticated HTTP API, and a connector refuses every Sprite until a policy grants access by name, label or endpoint. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/concepts/connectorsread 2026-11-05 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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exe.devWorkflow Orchestration There is no workflow logic for an agent's steps. Shelley can run several conversations at once on one VM or across VMs, each its own session, and pools share capacity across VMs, but sequencing, branching and retrying work stay in the agent or the customer's code. Sourceexe.dev/docs/shelley/uniqueread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesWorkflow Orchestration There is no workflow logic for an agent's steps. Services keep long running processes up, restart them when they crash and start them in dependency order, and a Tasks API keeps a Sprite awake until work finishes, but sequencing, branching and retrying an agent's work stay in the customer's code or framework. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/concepts/servicesread 2026-11-05 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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exe.devTriggers & Channel Coverage Work can reach an agent on its own. A VM can receive email at its own address, delivered to a mailbox the agent watches, and reply within each sender's thread, and Slack and Discord bot integrations carry messages both ways. VMs stay running, so an agent on one can act on incoming mail, chat messages or requests to its public HTTPS address as they arrive. There is no built in scheduler. Sourceexe.dev/docs/receive-emailread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesTriggers & Channel Coverage A request to a Sprite's URL wakes it without the customer's code calling it. If the Sprite's HTTP service is not running when the request arrives, the proxy starts it and forwards the request, so an agent or app served from a Sprite answers traffic while costing nothing in compute between requests. There is no scheduler or webhook. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/concepts/servicesread 2026-11-05 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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exe.devKnowledge Grounding & RAG No retrieval index or knowledge base over the customer's content comes with the platform. Files an agent reads live on the VM's disk or in attached storage, and Shelley reads project instructions from an AGENTS.md file. Sourceexe.dev/docsread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesKnowledge Grounding & RAG No retrieval index or knowledge base over the customer's content comes with Sprites. Files an agent reads live on the Sprite's disk, and any retrieval runs in the customer's own code. Sourcedocs.sprites.devread 2026-11-05 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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exe.devMemory & State Persistence An agent's working state lasts because the computer does. VMs are long lived with persistent NVMe disks whose changes are streamed to other machines in the region, and they can be backed up and copied. Shelley keeps each conversation as a log and compacts older context into new generations so long work can continue. This is machine and conversation state the user manages, not a memory layer of stated scope that can be reviewed or deleted as memory. Sourceexe.dev/docs/what-is-exeread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesMemory & State Persistence An agent's working state carries across sessions as machine state. A Sprite's disk keeps files, packages, repositories and databases stored on disk through every sleep, a warm pause keeps memory and running processes, and checkpoints copy the filesystem in about a second, with automatic checkpoints in the background and the last five mounted read only. An agent can checkpoint and restore its own Sprite. This is machine state the developer manages, not a memory layer of stated scope that can be reviewed or deleted as memory. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/concepts/checkpointsread 2026-11-05 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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exe.devHuman Oversight & Guardrails No approval step, consent checkpoint or escalation to a person comes with Shelley or with agents on a VM. Egress set to integrations only, private HTTPS addresses and secrets the VM cannot read limit what an agent can reach, but nothing holds an action until someone reviews it. Sourceexe.dev/docs/internet-accessread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesHuman Oversight & Guardrails Work in a Sprite has no approval step, consent checkpoint or escalation to a person. Connector policies, the outbound allowlist and MCP tokens limited to Sprites with a set name prefix restrict what an agent can reach, and an MCP client may ask before destructive tools run, but nothing on Fly.io's side holds an action for review. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/integrations/remote-mcpread 2026-11-05 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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exe.devSecurity, Identity & Governance Teams have a billing owner, admins who manage members and can reach any member's VM, and users who manage their own VMs, and a team can require sign in through Google or a custom OIDC provider such as Okta or Azure AD. API tokens carry an expiry and a set of allowed commands, SSH keys can be scoped to one VM, HTTPS addresses are private by default and integration secrets never reach the VM. exe.dev has no public compliance attestation, and its terms offer no certifications. Sourceexe.dev/docs/teams/overviewread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesSecurity, Identity & Governance Sprites run in Fly.io organizations, which have admin and member roles and can require single sign on through Google or GitHub. Organization tokens authenticate the command line tool, the API and the SDKs, MCP access is granted by OAuth with tokens limited by default to Sprites with a set name prefix, Sprite URLs are private to the organization unless made public, and connector credentials are stored encrypted outside the machine. Fly.io offers SOC 2 Type II and a HIPAA package with a BAA signed in advance on its paid plans, without saying whether they extend to Sprites. Sourcedocs.fly.io/security/ssoread 2026-11-05 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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exe.devObservability & Auditability Each VM can be inspected with resource metrics drawn as sparklines, and Shelley's web interface keeps every step of each conversation in view as it runs. No audit log, log service or traces for other agents on a VM come with the platform. Sourceexe.dev/apiread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesObservability & Auditability The machine is measured and the agent's steps are not. Service logs are kept with timestamps and read through the API, the command line tool and the MCP server, usage endpoints break compute and storage down by organization and by Sprite, managed connectors show usage over 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days, and exec sessions can be reattached after a disconnect. There are no traces or audit trail of what an agent did. Sourceapi.sprites.dev/openapi.jsonread 2026-11-05 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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exe.devDeployment & Data Residency VMs run in a region chosen per account or per pool, among Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney, with Oregon closed to new accounts, while the main exe.dev server sits in the United States for everyone. Enterprise customers can have dedicated single tenant hardware or run their team's VMs on servers in their own cloud account or data center. Sourceexe.dev/docs/regionsread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesDeployment & Data Residency Sprites run on Fly.io's hosted platform with no choice of region and no self hosted option. Creating a Sprite takes a name and URL settings only. Sourceapi.sprites.dev/openapi.jsonread 2026-11-05 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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exe.devPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs The default VM image comes with Shelley, a general coding agent, already running, and VMs can start from custom Docker images. Repository buttons and deploy guides start projects on a VM. These are a starting agent and environments a developer works from, not a set of prebuilt agents for business tasks. Sourceexe.dev/docs/shelley/introread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Starting points come as a ready image, plugins and framework integrations. Each Sprite starts from Ubuntu with Node.js, Python, Go, Rust, Java and other languages and AI command line tools preinstalled, plugins connect Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and other coding agents, and integrations cover Google ADK, the OpenAI Agents SDK, Pydantic AI and TanStack AI. These are tools a developer builds with, not prebuilt agents a business adopts. Sourcefly.io/sprites/ecosystemread 2026-11-05 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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exe.devModel Flexibility & Routing The customer chooses the models. The LLM integration routes requests by model ID to OpenAI, Anthropic, Fireworks or a custom HTTPS provider, using exe.dev managed credentials, the customer's own keys, a ChatGPT subscription or workload identity, and Shelley offers whichever models the attached integrations provide. Claude Code, Codex and other agents on the VM can point at the same gateway. Sourceexe.dev/docs/integrations-llmread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesModel Flexibility & Routing The customer chooses the agents and models. Any coding agent or framework can run in a Sprite, and connectors reach OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Fireworks, Hugging Face, Ollama Cloud and other model providers with the organization's own keys, or through a managed option for OpenRouter. Sourcefly.io/sprites/ecosystemread 2026-11-05 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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exe.devAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility An HTTPS API runs the same command set as the SSH interface, covering VMs, sharing, resizing, tags, copies, pools, integrations and teams, with bearer tokens limited by expiry and allowed commands, and an explorer walks through each command. An MCP server at exe.dev/mcp connects Claude Code and other agents, with plugins for Claude and ChatGPT, though its tools are not enumerated publicly. Sourceexe.dev/docs/https-apiread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Sprites are managed through a REST API with a public OpenAPI specification, Python, JavaScript, Go and Elixir SDKs and the sprite command line tool. A hosted MCP server at sprites.dev/mcp, authorized by OAuth, enumerates, creates and destroys Sprites and runs commands, checkpoints, network policy, services and service logs inside them, and an agent inside a Sprite reaches the same controls through a local management socket. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/integrations/remote-mcpread 2026-11-05 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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exe.devTesting, Debugging & Optimization There are no test cases, scoring or quality gates for an agent's behavior. Standalone VMs suit agent written code and CI jobs, with any testing done by the customer's own tools. Sourceexe.dev/docs/standalone-vmsread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesTesting, Debugging & Optimization There are no test cases, scoring or quality gates for an agent's behavior. Sprites can host evaluation and training environments such as Hugging Face OpenEnv through an experimental provider, with the scoring in the customer's own harness. Sourcedocs.fly.io/sprites/integrations/agent-sdksread 2026-11-05 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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exe.devBrowser & Computer Use Shelley, the agent on the default image, has a browser tool that drives Chromium, navigating sites, taking screenshots and using browser profiles. Other agents on a VM get no browser of exe.dev's own and install and drive one themselves. Sourceexe.dev/docs/shelley/uniqueread 2026-11-05 |
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Fly.io SpritesBrowser & Computer Use No browser or desktop for an agent to drive comes with Sprites. The Steel Browser Tools connector returns scraped web content, screenshots and PDFs without browser sessions, and an agent that needs to drive a browser installs and runs one itself inside the Sprite. Sourcefly.io/sprites/ecosystemread 2026-11-05 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | e exe.dev |
F Fly.io Sprites |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Personal at $15 a month for a pool of 2 vCPUs and 4 GiB of memory with up to 50 VMs, after a 7 day free trial. | Pay as you go at $0.0385 per CPU hour and $0.021875 per GB of memory an hour while a Sprite is awake, with $30 in trial credits for new users. |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, exact | Public, exact |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
Monthly subscription for a shared pool of vCPU and memory, plus hourly metering for capacity beyond it | CPU hours and GB of memory hours while awake, plus hot storage while awake and cold storage until deleted |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | High variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
No free tierTrial
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No free tierTrial
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Self-serve |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
Sprites are a product of Fly.io, which offers SOC 2 Type II and a HIPAA package on its paid plans without saying whether they extend to Sprites. exe.dev is run by Bold Software, Inc. of Berkeley and has no public compliance attestation.
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