Scalaris Atlas vs Screenbox

Scalaris Atlas is a local deployment that turns a computer into a private host for AI models and serves them to compatible clients. It accepts OpenAI-compatible clients at localhost and exposes routes for chat completions, embeddings, and model lists. Atlas includes Pulsar, while its model manager lets users install their own models. The API covers a strict subset of the OpenAI HTTP surface; unimplemented endpoints return a typed 501 response. Models are served locally, and the maker says nothing leaves the machine. Egress is denied by default, and non-loopback binds are refused unless explicitly enabled. Atlas has no telemetry or phone-home behavior, according to the maker. Scalaris Toolbox installs and supervises it. Configuration is kept in one TOML file and reloads when changed. GPU exhaustion can trigger CPU fallback only with --allow-cpu. It is free forever at free and runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Screenbox gives AI agents isolated virtual desktops with real browsers and desktop applications. Each desktop includes Chromium with DevTools and extensions, plus tools such as file managers, terminals, and office applications. Agents can use 21 MCP tools across more than 100 actions, including screenshots, OCR, clicks, typing, shell access, file operations, and clipboard control. It connects to MCP clients including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor through stdio, streamable HTTP, or SSE. A web dashboard supports live viewing, agent management, snapshots, session logs, and a knowledge browser. Users can save and restore desktop states, including files and browser sessions, and clone desktops from templates. Activity can be viewed through RDP or noVNC, with mouse and keyboard control available. Desktops run in Docker containers with memory limits, network isolation, and no bind mounts; the maker cautions that they are not hardened sandboxes. The software is self-hosted and open source under AGPL-3.0. The maker says deployment data stays on the user's infrastructure and the software sends no telemetry to Screenbox or third parties. It requires about 2 GB of RAM per desktop and no GPU; idle desktops pause automatically.