# Vercel Sandbox cuts snapshot creation time by up to 10x

published: 2026-11-09T23:05:18.069Z
topic: infrastructure
source: https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-sandbox-snapshot-creation-is-now-up-to-10x-faster
url: https://aiagentnews.io/stories/vercel-sandbox-cuts-snapshot-creation-time-by-up-to-10x

Vercel Sandbox now creates snapshots up to 10x faster, with median time to snapshot falling from 4.4 seconds to under 0.4 seconds. Snapshot restore at p50 also improved by 50%, from 500ms to 250ms.

Vercel says snapshot creation in Vercel Sandbox is now up to 10x faster. The median time to snapshot is now under 0.4 seconds, down from 4.4 seconds. Restore speed also improved, moving from 500ms to 250ms at p50, a 50% gain.

The speedup comes from a change to the Vercel Hive Snapshot (VHS) format. Snapshots can now write and restore by re-using frames within that format, and VHS indexes data more efficiently, so more read and write operations run in parallel. Snapshots can also restore more of a sandbox base image alongside user data.

Persistent sandboxes, the default, snapshot automatically when a session stops and resume from the latest snapshot. The new format applies to all new snapshots with no configuration needed, while existing snapshots keep the previous format.

## Why it matters if you build agents

Agents that pause and resume sandboxes between sessions should see shorter waits at both stop and start, since snapshots now save and restore faster.

No code or configuration changes are required to get the new format, but snapshots created before the change stay in the older format.