7 ms·

What are some of the competitors in this space? - Gitpod, a SaaS competitor to Codespaces. http://gitpod.io http://gitpod.io - Coder, which I guess is the mor

What are some of the competitors in this space? - Gitpod, a SaaS competitor to Codespaces. http://gitpod.io http://gitpod.io - Coder, which I guess is the more enterprisey self-hosted Codespaces alternative? https://coder.com https://coder.com - This project, Devpod, seems to be a polished experience but not centralized like Coder. - I recently stumbled upon Recode, which looks like a more indie take on the problem. https://github.com/recode-sh/cli https://github.com/recode-sh/cli

Yeroc 3y ago
I suppose Eclipse Che <https://www.eclipse.org/che/ https://www.eclipse.org/che/> would also count?
22c 3y ago
It's a lot older but I would say Vagrant intersects with this space https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant Possibly devenv, as well.. Though I haven't personally tried it https://devenv.sh/ https://devenv.sh/
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I've been using devenv for new projects. I like it so far. Some might find nix (which it requires) to be overkill, but I think that's underestimating how devilish of a problem it's solving.
  - 22c 3y ago
    It seems more approachable than going down the NixOS rabbit hole. I haven't had a need to reach for it yet, but I will probably try it out at some point.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      I'd be cautious about thinking that you'll be able to use it for complex projects without eventually needing to enter the NixOS rabbit hole. This hasn't happened to me yet on a project that I'm using devnenv with, but while using nix flakes I've found weirdness in nipkgs that I wanted to address. On the other hand, the ability to put non python deps in a place that feels like a venv... feels pretty magical.
      - 22c 3y ago
        Yes for Python it seems to sit between a blurry midpoint of "just use Poetry!" and "just use a container!", but I can see it potentially being useful for a batteries-included devenv in more niche applications like Julia, Elixir, microcontrollers/development boards, etc.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    devbox is a similar idea, but is more approachable for those who don't know nix.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  Vagrant was fantastic pre-Docker and is still arguably more useful for certain cases, but I recall having issues running it last I tried. Based on the website, VirtualBox still lacks stable ARM64 support. Would "boxes" downloaded from the Vagrant cloud need to be built for ARM64 as well, or does it emulate?
  - dharmab 3y ago
    It does not emulate. My org has been deprecating Vagrant ever since IT started issuing Apple Silicon as an option. Replacement is Docker Compose, or cloud VMs for software with heavy disk I/O.
    - pcthrowaway 3y ago
      Do you know if Packer is still decent for building cloud AMIs? Or do you have any suggestion for building custom images that can run on cloud platforms as well as locally?
      - dharmab 3y ago
        We're mostly using multi-arch container images for that use case.
      - CaveTech 3y ago
        We use packer to build our images for all of Vagrant, Docker and AMIs (multi-arch) and push to the relevant registries. The packer side is probably ~100 lines of HCL, and allows us to have consistent images no matter where it's running. It's a fairly simple tool in premise and does what's on the tin, would recommend.
    - charrondev 3y ago
      Is there such a significant problem with disk IO going to docker for Mac over vagrant? Now there is overhead for mounting local volumes into the container, but I’ve found them to be negligible on my Apple Silicon Mac’s in the last year or 2. (Apple seems to have been the one to fix it with their new virtualization framework which docker for Mac supports). Now back when they first added their APFS file system things were atrociously slow when it came to Disk IO (as in 10x slowdowns or more) and there were various workarounds but it seems resolved to me now.
- debosmit 3y ago
  https://devzero.io https://devzero.io
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Vagrant was the reason for Hashicorp :-)
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    Too bad they abandoned it.
    - mdaniel 3y ago
      https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/CHANGELOG.md#237-june-15-2023 https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/CHANGELOG.m... ? The changelog lists both improvements and bug fixes and there's even apparently some effort to port it away from ruby: https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/internal/cli/main.go#L60 https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/internal/cl...
- seanp2k2 3y ago
  Kinda sort nix?
foxtrotwhiskey9 3y ago
I think StackBlitz (https://stackblitz.com/ https://stackblitz.com/) falls into this space
jchw 3y ago
There's also koding.com, which has been around for a while. I tried the service quite a long time ago because I used to find the "cloud coding" concept enticing, though it was definitely not as baked (probably due to Monaco not existing at the time, and likewise, browsers not being as good.) Nowadays I still feel like the user experience problems, limitations, and cost (when not subsidized) with coding this way largely make it a niche for people who have unusual needs. Especially because, there are tons of local options for reproducible dev environments, and they can continue to work without a network connection or on unreliable connections, something that is unimpressive even in the best conditions I've seen so far. If you happen to have the exact set of needs that one of these products solve, then it can probably work fairly well. But, even when working on "web" stuff, I always find myself feeling like they're just never quite as good as just doing things locally. I feel like devcontainers and cloud coding in general are more impressive to those who haven't managed to tame their own dev environments and are seeing a solution to this for the first time. It's also clearly useful for people on iPads and other devices that are either too low end to run/compile your code or arbitrarily limited to prevent it. However, with how powerful iPads are nowadays, it feels like if Apple ever allowed apps to use virtualization extensions, it would probably be a better solution for a lot of people who do not need a huge cloud workstation with a lot of RAM. I imagine your average Rails app or Go backend would just have no problem running directly on an iPad.
nvartolomei 3y ago
https://hocus.dev/ https://hocus.dev/
brazzledazzle 3y ago
AWS has Cloud9[1] though it's worth pointing out that it's not an exact a 1:1 and may require some elbow grease to use in the same manner[2]. 1. https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ 2. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/field-notes-use-aws-cloud9-to-power-your-visual-studio-code-ide/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/field-notes-use-aw... (2021)
nkko 3y ago
https://www.daytona.io https://www.daytona.io is currently in stealth preparing to launch. You could grab early access by joining the waitlist.
- esafak 3y ago
  What's its difference?
  - nkko 3y ago
    Daytona will be available as SaaS and self-hosted alternative to cloud-based development environments like Codespaces (also using devcontainer.json). It provides similar capabilities for setting up and managing development environments, but with the flexibility of hosting and managing the infrastructure yourself.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
Bridge to K8s, CloudShell Editor, Cloud Code, Coder, DevSpace, Eclipse Che, Garden, GitPod, GitHub Codespaces, ksync, Kubectl-warp, Nocalhost, Okteto, Squash, Stern, Skaffold, Telepresence, Tilt
CompuIves 3y ago
At CodeSandbox (https://codesandbox.io https://codesandbox.io) we're also working on this! Main focus of us is that we're running the environment in Firecracker microVMs, which allows us to snapshot and clone environments very quickly. This enables us to create a VM for every branch, which comes with the added advantage that every branch automatically has a snapshotted preview environment that can resume in ~2 seconds.
- gbraad 3y ago
  Love CSB. Using this a lot for quick setup of developer environments to test a code change, etc.
luckywatcher 3y ago
It's not a direct competitor, but we use https://tilt.dev/ https://tilt.dev/ at my company for local and remote development.
ammario 3y ago
Coder’s big difference is that it uses Terraform for provisioning, so it can do Docker/Kubernetes as well as VMs
twobitshifter 3y ago
Microsoft has DevBox but it’s not clear where that fits around Codespaces? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-developer-community-blog/introducing-microsoft-dev-box/ba-p/3412063 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-developer-commu...
- rcarmo 3y ago
  DevBox is a full VM with everything installed. Codespaces is a container with a web or SSH interface.
square_usual 3y ago
Is there a comparison of some sort somewhere? I have some spare resources I could use for one of these, but they all seem very similar.
stepchowfun 3y ago
For something a bit more lightweight, Toast: https://github.com/stepchowfun/toast https://github.com/stepchowfun/toast
- darkvertex 3y ago
  This reads a lot like https://earthly.dev https://earthly.dev
eikenberry 3y ago
Seems like toolbox is also in this space; https://github.com/containers/toolbox https://github.com/containers/toolbox
- gbraad 3y ago
  Toolbox is not a developer environment, but rather a tool to provide 'a toolbox' to a container host, like the older Atomic, or CoreOS releases that are immutable. Dsitrobox is close to toolbox, but also not similar in providing a coder setup.
  - eikenberry 3y ago
    Toolbox seems pretty well suited for a console based development setup. It works as a simple wrapper around docker/podman which lets you build your dev environments using Dockerfile syntax which is very nice.
    - gbraad 3y ago
      It is not really what DevPod provides as they connect a code-server, jetbrains, remote vscode, etc. Sure, 'Toolbx' can do that to; you can install vim, etc. We advertise toolbox as "interactive command line environments on Linux" foremost. DevPod offers this on Windows, MacOS, beyond the command line. as you said, it is just a wrapper around a 'special' (custom images can cause issues) toolbox container and podman. The tool they offer is much more streamlined to use providers; targeting different environments. Note: Member of the 'containers' group on GitHub/Red Hat.
pluto_modadic 3y ago
I had really hoped Eclipse Theia would be an alternative.

Yeroc 3y ago

I suppose Eclipse Che <https://www.eclipse.org/che/ https://www.eclipse.org/che/> would also count?

22c 3y ago

It's a lot older but I would say Vagrant intersects with this space https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant Possibly devenv, as well.. Though I haven't personally tried it https://devenv.sh/ https://devenv.sh/

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I've been using devenv for new projects. I like it so far. Some might find nix (which it requires) to be overkill, but I think that's underestimating how devilish of a problem it's solving.
- 22c 3y ago
  It seems more approachable than going down the NixOS rabbit hole. I haven't had a need to reach for it yet, but I will probably try it out at some point.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I'd be cautious about thinking that you'll be able to use it for complex projects without eventually needing to enter the NixOS rabbit hole. This hasn't happened to me yet on a project that I'm using devnenv with, but while using nix flakes I've found weirdness in nipkgs that I wanted to address. On the other hand, the ability to put non python deps in a place that feels like a venv... feels pretty magical.
    - 22c 3y ago
      Yes for Python it seems to sit between a blurry midpoint of "just use Poetry!" and "just use a container!", but I can see it potentially being useful for a batteries-included devenv in more niche applications like Julia, Elixir, microcontrollers/development boards, etc.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  devbox is a similar idea, but is more approachable for those who don't know nix.
evantbyrne 3y ago
Vagrant was fantastic pre-Docker and is still arguably more useful for certain cases, but I recall having issues running it last I tried. Based on the website, VirtualBox still lacks stable ARM64 support. Would "boxes" downloaded from the Vagrant cloud need to be built for ARM64 as well, or does it emulate?
- dharmab 3y ago
  It does not emulate. My org has been deprecating Vagrant ever since IT started issuing Apple Silicon as an option. Replacement is Docker Compose, or cloud VMs for software with heavy disk I/O.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    Do you know if Packer is still decent for building cloud AMIs? Or do you have any suggestion for building custom images that can run on cloud platforms as well as locally?
    - dharmab 3y ago
      We're mostly using multi-arch container images for that use case.
    - CaveTech 3y ago
      We use packer to build our images for all of Vagrant, Docker and AMIs (multi-arch) and push to the relevant registries. The packer side is probably ~100 lines of HCL, and allows us to have consistent images no matter where it's running. It's a fairly simple tool in premise and does what's on the tin, would recommend.
  - charrondev 3y ago
    Is there such a significant problem with disk IO going to docker for Mac over vagrant? Now there is overhead for mounting local volumes into the container, but I’ve found them to be negligible on my Apple Silicon Mac’s in the last year or 2. (Apple seems to have been the one to fix it with their new virtualization framework which docker for Mac supports). Now back when they first added their APFS file system things were atrociously slow when it came to Disk IO (as in 10x slowdowns or more) and there were various workarounds but it seems resolved to me now.
debosmit 3y ago
https://devzero.io https://devzero.io
quickthrower2 3y ago
Vagrant was the reason for Hashicorp :-)
- numbsafari 3y ago
  Too bad they abandoned it.
  - mdaniel 3y ago
    https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/CHANGELOG.md#237-june-15-2023 https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/CHANGELOG.m... ? The changelog lists both improvements and bug fixes and there's even apparently some effort to port it away from ruby: https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/internal/cli/main.go#L60 https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/blob/v2.3.7/internal/cl...
seanp2k2 3y ago
Kinda sort nix?

foxtrotwhiskey9 3y ago

I think StackBlitz (https://stackblitz.com/ https://stackblitz.com/) falls into this space

jchw 3y ago

There's also koding.com, which has been around for a while. I tried the service quite a long time ago because I used to find the "cloud coding" concept enticing, though it was definitely not as baked (probably due to Monaco not existing at the time, and likewise, browsers not being as good.) Nowadays I still feel like the user experience problems, limitations, and cost (when not subsidized) with coding this way largely make it a niche for people who have unusual needs. Especially because, there are tons of local options for reproducible dev environments, and they can continue to work without a network connection or on unreliable connections, something that is unimpressive even in the best conditions I've seen so far. If you happen to have the exact set of needs that one of these products solve, then it can probably work fairly well. But, even when working on "web" stuff, I always find myself feeling like they're just never quite as good as just doing things locally. I feel like devcontainers and cloud coding in general are more impressive to those who haven't managed to tame their own dev environments and are seeing a solution to this for the first time. It's also clearly useful for people on iPads and other devices that are either too low end to run/compile your code or arbitrarily limited to prevent it. However, with how powerful iPads are nowadays, it feels like if Apple ever allowed apps to use virtualization extensions, it would probably be a better solution for a lot of people who do not need a huge cloud workstation with a lot of RAM. I imagine your average Rails app or Go backend would just have no problem running directly on an iPad.

nvartolomei 3y ago

https://hocus.dev/ https://hocus.dev/

brazzledazzle 3y ago

AWS has Cloud9[1] though it's worth pointing out that it's not an exact a 1:1 and may require some elbow grease to use in the same manner[2]. 1. https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ 2. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/field-notes-use-aws-cloud9-to-power-your-visual-studio-code-ide/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/field-notes-use-aw... (2021)

nkko 3y ago

https://www.daytona.io https://www.daytona.io is currently in stealth preparing to launch. You could grab early access by joining the waitlist.

esafak 3y ago
What's its difference?
- nkko 3y ago
  Daytona will be available as SaaS and self-hosted alternative to cloud-based development environments like Codespaces (also using devcontainer.json). It provides similar capabilities for setting up and managing development environments, but with the flexibility of hosting and managing the infrastructure yourself.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

Bridge to K8s, CloudShell Editor, Cloud Code, Coder, DevSpace, Eclipse Che, Garden, GitPod, GitHub Codespaces, ksync, Kubectl-warp, Nocalhost, Okteto, Squash, Stern, Skaffold, Telepresence, Tilt

CompuIves 3y ago

At CodeSandbox (https://codesandbox.io https://codesandbox.io) we're also working on this! Main focus of us is that we're running the environment in Firecracker microVMs, which allows us to snapshot and clone environments very quickly. This enables us to create a VM for every branch, which comes with the added advantage that every branch automatically has a snapshotted preview environment that can resume in ~2 seconds.

gbraad 3y ago
Love CSB. Using this a lot for quick setup of developer environments to test a code change, etc.

luckywatcher 3y ago

It's not a direct competitor, but we use https://tilt.dev/ https://tilt.dev/ at my company for local and remote development.

ammario 3y ago

Coder’s big difference is that it uses Terraform for provisioning, so it can do Docker/Kubernetes as well as VMs

twobitshifter 3y ago

Microsoft has DevBox but it’s not clear where that fits around Codespaces? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-developer-community-blog/introducing-microsoft-dev-box/ba-p/3412063 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-developer-commu...

rcarmo 3y ago
DevBox is a full VM with everything installed. Codespaces is a container with a web or SSH interface.

square_usual 3y ago

Is there a comparison of some sort somewhere? I have some spare resources I could use for one of these, but they all seem very similar.

stepchowfun 3y ago

For something a bit more lightweight, Toast: https://github.com/stepchowfun/toast https://github.com/stepchowfun/toast

darkvertex 3y ago
This reads a lot like https://earthly.dev https://earthly.dev

eikenberry 3y ago

Seems like toolbox is also in this space; https://github.com/containers/toolbox https://github.com/containers/toolbox

gbraad 3y ago
Toolbox is not a developer environment, but rather a tool to provide 'a toolbox' to a container host, like the older Atomic, or CoreOS releases that are immutable. Dsitrobox is close to toolbox, but also not similar in providing a coder setup.
- eikenberry 3y ago
  Toolbox seems pretty well suited for a console based development setup. It works as a simple wrapper around docker/podman which lets you build your dev environments using Dockerfile syntax which is very nice.
  - gbraad 3y ago
    It is not really what DevPod provides as they connect a code-server, jetbrains, remote vscode, etc. Sure, 'Toolbx' can do that to; you can install vim, etc. We advertise toolbox as "interactive command line environments on Linux" foremost. DevPod offers this on Windows, MacOS, beyond the command line. as you said, it is just a wrapper around a 'special' (custom images can cause issues) toolbox container and podman. The tool they offer is much more streamlined to use providers; targeting different environments. Note: Member of the 'containers' group on GitHub/Red Hat.

pluto_modadic 3y ago

I had really hoped Eclipse Theia would be an alternative.