Registry › Compare › BoxLite vs OpenShell

BoxLite vs OpenShell

BoxLite leads on trust: 85.8/100 (Grade A) against 74.4/100 (Grade B), a 11.4-point gap. BoxLite leads on supply-chain integrity and provenance; OpenShell leads on transparency and adoption.

A BoxLite 85.8

The micro-VM for AI agents — light enough to embed on your laptop, elastic enough to power an agentic cloud.

boxlite-ai/boxlite · #87 overall · #1 Sandboxes & Runtimes · coverage B (3/5)

Choose BoxLite if supply-chain integrity and provenance matter most.

+7.2Identity / Provenance: package provenance attested, against none
+5.9Safety / Integrity: package provenance attested, against none

B OpenShell 74.4

OpenShell is the safe, private runtime for autonomous AI agents.

NVIDIA/OpenShell · #275 overall · #3 Sandboxes & Runtimes · coverage B (3/5)

Choose OpenShell if transparency and adoption matter most.

+2.4Adoption: 137.4k weekly downloads against 89.7k
+1.1Transparency: OSSF Scorecard 6.5 against 5.2

Where they differ

19.0

Safety / IntegrityBoxLite +5.9

13.1

18.0

Identity / ProvenanceBoxLite +7.2

10.8

12.9

TransparencyOpenShell +1.1

14.0

14.8

AdoptionOpenShell +2.4

17.2

+1.2

Runtime calibrationBoxLite +1.8

-0.6

1 dimension identical: Maintenance 19.9 · Full evidence table

An independent, evidence-based trust comparison of BoxLite and OpenShell, two Sandboxes & Runtimes projects in the HVTracker registry. Scores come from public, checkable signals — supply-chain provenance, OSSF Scorecard, maintenance, and adoption — not popularity.

Full evidence

Signal	BoxLiteboxlite-ai/boxlite	OpenShellNVIDIA/OpenShell
HVTrust score	85.8	74.4
Evidence grade	A	B
Coverage grade	B	B
Overall rank	#87	#275
Rank in Sandboxes & Runtimes	#1	#3
GitHub stars	2.7k	21.0k
Last updated	1d ago	1d ago
Build provenance	Yes	No
OSSF Scorecard	5.2 / 10	6.5 / 10
License	Apache-2.0	Apache-2.0
Downloads	90k/wk	137k/wk
Trust dimensions (points earned)
Safety / integrity / 25	19.0	13.1
Identity & provenance / 18	18.0	10.8
Transparency / 17	12.9	14.0
Maintenance / 20	19.9	19.9
Adoption / 20	14.8	17.2
Runtime capability surface (full matrix)
MCP server	—	—
External providers	3 — Anthropic, Postgres, Redis	—
Requires API keys	No	No
Plugin surface	plugins	extensions
Provenance drift	Match	Unknown

Open in the live compare tool → BoxLite profile OpenShell profile More Sandboxes & Runtimes →

How to read this: HVTrust (0–100) weighs supply-chain signals (provenance, OSSF Scorecard, signed commits, open license) alongside real-world adoption, scaled by an evidence-confidence factor. Grade bands: A ≥ 80, B ≥ 65, C ≥ 50, D < 50. Signals refresh daily. Full methodology v4.4 →