Shellbox
Instant Linux Boxes via SSH
Details
- External ID
- 46588052
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Shellbox
- Website domain
- shellbox.dev
- Launched
- Jan. 12, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 5
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.09617918313570488
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
I built a service that gives you instant Linux boxes using only SSH. No accounts, no CLI tools, no browser – just: ssh shellbox.dev Your SSH key is your identity. First connection creates your account.Commands work over SSH: ssh shellbox.dev create mybox ssh -t shellbox.dev connect mybox ssh shellbox.dev listEach box gets a public HTTPS URL for serving apps or webhooks.Pricing: $0.05/hr running, $0.005/hr paused. Boxes auto-pause on disconnect and resume where you left off.Even billing stays in the terminal – run `ssh shellbox.dev funds 10` and you get a QR code right in your shell. Scan it, pay via Paddle, done. No account dashboards.Specs: 2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM, 50GB SSD per box.I wanted something I could spin up from any machine with just a terminal. No installs, no OAuth flows, no "please verify your email." Works great for quick experiments, running Claude Code in isolation, or giving demos a public URL.Would love feedback. What's missing?
Enrichment
- Theme
- file transfer and sharing tools
- Vertical
- —
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Commercial product
- Normalized one-liner
- instant linux environments via ssh
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Partial A custom SSH entrypoint server is straightforward to prototype, but securely provisioning, isolating, networking, and orchestrating multi-tenant ephemeral Linux containers/VMs safely requires strong systems infrastructure skills.
What it would actually take: The architecture relies on a custom SSH server (in Go using crypto/ssh or Rust using russh) that authenticates users via public keys and dynamically spins up Firecracker microVMs or isolated containerd namespaces. A control plane orchestrates storage volumes, CPU/memory limits, IP allocation via CNI, and strict multi-tenant network sandboxing. Deep knowledge of Linux cgroups, eBPF/iptables, and virtualization is necessary to prevent host escapes and abuse.
Discussion
No comments on this launch.
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 128 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #126 of 129 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 74 days after the earliest competitor.
- GateShell - SSH Client & Server · ph · 2026-09-16 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- ShellDash · hn · 2025-11-12 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- ServerBox · github · 2026-09-26 · 85 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- box · ph · 2026-07-22 · 238 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- ShellCanvas · ph · 2026-09-25 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- ZestSSH - Modern SSH Client · ph · 2026-09-08 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Vpod · hn · 2026-06-17 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- VaultSandbox · hn · 2026-01-06 · 58 upvotes · similarity 0.41
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.