Zydra vs exe.dev

1 November 2026

Both start with an ssh command and give your agents a Linux virtual machine on someone else's hardware, but they aim at different jobs. exe.dev sells a pool of CPU and memory that up to 50 persistent VMs share, with HTTPS, custom domains and login built in, from $15 a month. Zydra sells one VM with a graphical desktop drawn in your terminal, a GPU, a browser beside the agent, a phone view of the whole desktop and a timeline that rewinds it, for $40 a month. Choose exe.dev to run many machines and host what you build; choose Zydra when your agents need to see and use graphical apps and you want to watch them.

Everything about exe.dev here comes from its home page, pricing page and docs as of November 2026. Prices and features change, so check their pages before you decide.

What is exe.dev?

exe.dev calls itself "Computers for developers and agents". You run ssh exe.dev, reserve a pool of vCPUs and memory, and your VMs share it. You are root in each VM, with apt and systemd. The VMs are persistent, private by default and shareable with others.

What its pricing page and docs list for every plan:

KVM-isolated VMs with persistent disks on local NVMe, streamed to another server in the region.
Managed HTTPS and TLS, custom domains and built-in web authentication, so a web app on a VM can go online without writing a login system.
An SSH CLI, an HTTPS API and an MCP server, so agents can create VMs themselves.
Standalone sandbox VMs billed by the second.
iOS, Android and Mac apps.
Shelley, a web-based coding agent that runs on each VM, works on mobile, and has a browser tool that drives Chromium and takes screenshots. You can bring your own LLM subscription. Other agents run on the VMs too, and some come preinstalled.

How do the prices compare?

exe.dev's Personal plan is $15 a month for a 2 vCPU / 4 GiB pool with 100 GiB of disk and up to 50 VMs. Bigger pools cost more: $35 a month for 4 vCPU and 8 GB, up to $155 for 16 vCPU and 32 GB. Sandbox VMs cost $0.105 an hour per 2 vCPU / 4 GiB. The Work plan for teams starts at $75 a month, with an intro price of $37.50 for the first 3 months, and adds unlimited users and SSO. New accounts get a 7-day trial with no card if they link a paid ChatGPT subscription.

Zydra has one plan: $40 a month for one VM with 8 GB of memory and 80 GB of storage, with no time limit. Anyone can try it with a free 15-minute demo that needs no sign-up and no card, only an SSH key. The paid plan has a 3-day money-back guarantee.

At the same 8 GB of memory, exe.dev is $5 a month cheaper and has more disk. It is also the only one of the two with an entry price under $40.

Where exe.dev is the better choice

Many machines. One pool runs up to 50 VMs on Personal and 1,000 per pool on Work. Zydra is one VM per account.
Hosting apps. exe.dev gives VMs HTTPS, custom domains and built-in auth. Zydra gives apps in the VM no public address at all.
Price of entry. $15 a month against $40.
Teams. Roles, sharing controls, unlimited users and SSO on Work. Zydra has no team plan.
Native apps. exe.dev has iOS, Android and Mac apps. Zydra's phone view is a web page, which you can add to your Home Screen.
Automation. An HTTPS API and MCP server for creating VMs, and sandboxes by the second.
Trial length. Seven days with a ChatGPT subscription, against Zydra's 15-minute demo.

Where Zydra is the better choice

Graphical apps. Zydra's VM runs a full desktop: a browser, a file manager, an editor and any Linux GUI app, drawn in your terminal over SSH. We found no graphical desktop on exe.dev's pricing page or in its docs, so it isn't offered out of the box there.
A real browser beside the agent. Claude Code and Codex in Zydra come with a desktop plugin that lets them open a page in a tile next to their terminal and screenshot it, and you see the same page live. Shelley's browser tool on exe.dev also navigates pages and takes screenshots. The difference is that in Zydra the page is a window on your desktop, so you watch it as the agent works.
A GPU. Zydra's browsers and apps render on the server's GPU. We found no GPU offer on exe.dev's pages.
Your clipboard and notifications. Ctrl+V in Claude Code pastes a screenshot from your own computer, through a terminal with Kitty's clipboard protocol. Notifications from any program in the VM reach your terminal and your phone. exe.dev's docs show integrations such as Pushover, Slack and Discord that let a VM send you messages, which works but needs wiring.
The whole desktop on your phone. Zydra's phone view shows every window live, with a text field, a key row and taps, so you can answer Claude Code, Codex or a plain shell from the same place.
Rewinding what the agent did. Zydra's timeline records the desktop and keeps snapshots of the VM, so you can scrub back to see what the agent did and restore the whole machine to an earlier point. exe.dev can copy a VM, and it backs up disks to your own S3 bucket in a preview feature, which covers recovery but not watching.

What do they have in common?

Both are SSH-first: you start in an SSH session, with nothing to install on your computer. Both isolate each VM with KVM. Zydra runs its VMs with crosvm, and each account's VM runs as its own host user. Both keep the VM running when you disconnect, so agents keep working with your laptop closed. Both run Claude Code and Codex in the VM.

Which should I pick?

If you want to host what your agents build, run several VMs, work as a team, or spend less, exe.dev fits better. If your agents work with browsers and other graphical apps, you want to watch and answer them from your phone, and you want to rewind the machine when they break it, Zydra fits better. Nothing stops you from using both: exe.dev to host the app, Zydra as the desk where the agent builds it.

Try it

Run ssh zydra.sh in your terminal. The demo is free for 15 minutes and needs no sign-up.