# Do coding agents recommend Modal?

> Modal was chosen in 25% of 299 judged code sandboxes sessions, ranking second. Measured with Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.

Source: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-modal
Published: 2026-09-03
Publisher: Armature, Inc. (https://armature.tech)

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> Modal was chosen in 25% of 299 judged code sandboxes sessions, ranking second. It was also raised as a candidate in 224 further sessions without being chosen.

This page reports what happened when Claude Code, Codex and Cursor had to solve a problem in code sandboxes inside a realistic codebase. Not what a chat assistant says about Modal. What an agent actually installed.

## The numbers

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Category | Code sandboxes |
| Sessions in the category | 299 |
| Sessions where Modal was chosen | 74 |
| Install share | 25% |
| Rank in category | 2 of 7 |
| Codebases it won in | 5 |
| Raised as a candidate, not chosen | 224 |
| Chosen when considered | 25% |
| Site | modal.com |

## By agent

The three agents treat Modal very differently. Codex chose it in 48% of its sessions in this category and Cursor in 0%, a spread of 48 points.

| Agent | Sessions | Chose Modal | Share |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Claude Code | 95 | 25 | 26% |
| Codex | 102 | 49 | 48% |
| Cursor | 102 | 0 | 0% |

A single blended install share would report the midpoint and hide both ends. If most of your users run Cursor, your real position here is 0%, not 25%.

## By who was asking

Modal does much better with one kind of buyer than another. It won 26% of sessions asked as senior engineer and 10% of those asked as enterprise team.

| Who is asking | Sessions | Chose Modal | Share |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Senior engineer | 269 | 71 | 26% |
| Enterprise team | 30 | 3 | 10% |

## What Modal was up against

The full ranking in code sandboxes, from the same sessions:

| # | Product | Runs won | Share |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | E2B | 127 | 42% |
| 2 | Modal **(this page)** | 74 | 25% |
| 3 | Daytona | 47 | 16% |
| 4 | Vercel Sandbox | 43 | 14% |
| 5 | Anthropic Code Execution | 3 | 1% |
| 6 | Runloop Devboxes | 3 | 1% |
| 7 | Cloudflare Workers | 2 | 1% |

## What this means

A solid second or third position in a category means the agent is genuinely choosing rather than reaching automatically. That is a winnable position, because the inputs it uses can be changed.

The fastest gains are usually in the sessions that were nearly won: read them, find the step where the agent moved on, and fix that step.

## Where these numbers come from

The 299 sessions in code sandboxes are part of a published set of 5,292, run with real coding agents inside realistic codebases and judged blind. The full method is on one page: [how we measured this](/library/how-we-measured-this).

Every code sandboxes run can be replayed on [the board](/leaderboards/sandboxes).

If you work on Modal: the judge recorded a reason for every session where it was raised and passed over. Those reasons are in the transcripts.

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## Common questions

### Do coding agents recommend Modal?

Yes. Modal was chosen in 74 of the 299 judged sessions in code sandboxes, a 25% install share, ranking second in its category.

### Does Claude Code recommend Modal?

In 25 of the 95 sessions in code sandboxes run with Claude Code, which is 26%.

### Do different coding agents treat Modal differently?

Yes, and by a wide margin. Codex chose it in 48% of its runs and Cursor in 0%.

### How was this measured?

Real coding agents at pinned versions were run in sandboxes inside 51 realistic codebases and asked to solve real tasks. A simulated project owner approved or questioned each recommendation before any code was written, and a judge from a model family that builds none of the agents read every session blind.

### How often is Modal considered but not chosen?

It was raised as a candidate in 224 sessions without being chosen, and chosen in 74. That is a 25% conversion from considered to chosen.

## Read next

- [How to get picked for code sandboxes by coding agents](https://armature.tech/library/sandboxes-coding-agents-playbook) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/sandboxes-coding-agents-playbook.md)
- [Do coding agents recommend E2B?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-e2b) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-e2b.md)
- [Do coding agents recommend Daytona?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-daytona) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-daytona.md)
- [Do Claude Code, Codex and Cursor pick the same tools?](https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree.md)

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