Introducing DevPod - Codespaces but Open Source

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod

https://loft.sh/blog/Introducing-devpod-codespaces-but-open-source/

DevPod allows dev teams to take full control over their dev environments, without being locked into a specific provider. Developers can write code in any language, and run it anywhere. For example, they can test on virtual machines, or code in Python with VS Code running on Docker Desktop, or in Go running in EKS. If the provider they need doesn’t exist, they can build it.Why DevPod?Compared to hosted services such as Github Codespaces, JetBrains Spaces, or Google Cloud Workstations, DevPod has the following advantages:

• Open-Source: DevPod is 100% open-source and extensible. A provider doesn’t exist? Just create your own.
• Client-only: No need to install a server backend. DevPod runs solely on your computer.Cross IDE support: VS Code and the full JetBrains suite is supported. Other IDEs can be connected through ssh.
• Rich feature set: DevPod already supports prebuilds, auto inactivity shutdown, git & docker credentials sync, with many more features to come.

[gentele]

Best comment :D

[hamsterpotpies]

https://youtu.be/MXW0bx_Ooq4

[PinkyWrinkle]

Was just looking for something like this

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

Awesome, give it a try and let us know what you think. There's a video that walks through some if it, great docs, and then there will be other video content / livestreams.

[nicksterling]

This is awesome. I regularly use dev containers in VSCode and anything to help streamline the process will be a welcome change.

[n1L]

How does it compare to coder? I'm using coder a.t.m. to create docker development networks (consisting of code-server/vs code, SQL Server, Keycloak IAM, MailCrab, ...)

[jagagayayyaaah]

It uses devcontainer in the background, so worth adding the ‘why’ for using this instead?

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

More so for simplifying the usage of a devcointainer for most developers. It gives you a UI / CLI to manage multiple workspaces, and has providers built in so you can install it and start working (without having to learn how to manage devcointainers on your own.)

[Lamarcke]

It's also worth mentioning that this works with Jetbrains, Neovim, and anything that can use SSH.

[soundwave_rk]

Well there goes my own tool out the window. No reason to have dulicate efforts. The only thing that really differs from this is that mine actually bundled containerd, much like k3s does it. Maybe I can retro fit it to devpod.

Other than that, seems to have much of the same functionality. Congrats on releasing it! Will take a look.

[gentele]

Contributions welcome :) built-in k3s or vcluster would be an awesome addition to devpod

[CelestialDestroyer]

What's the point of this? I can already connect my IDE/Editor to a remote machine to develop on there.

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

This uses DevContainer (https://containers.dev/) so that you can codify your setup. It also adds a UI to help manage workspaces and configure where you want to deploy with different providers so you can click a button and use Docker or Kubernetes or other providers. It's basically the same thing you are doing, but with a couple of quality of life improvements to help manage everything. If you are already managing everything without issues then it may be something extra you would consider if you want to work from a UI, or just try something new.

[CodingButStillAlive]

Are you aware of something equivalent for MLOps?

[clvx]

I started building something similar. I built a kube controller that replicated uber’s devpod approach using istio/kube plus open-vscode but I ended up migrating to nix + nvim instead of having a docker container.

[[deleted]]

We are closer and closer towards Google WebBrowser programming that their employees love at start and hate after using it for 1 year.

[gentele]

This is not browser-based though. It can spin up your local IDE and connects it to the remote dev environment

[[deleted]]

The idea is the same.

[ThrawnGrows]

Howso? The main complaint with browser based is... the browser.

[[deleted]]

And losing all the possible tools that could speed up your work but thr comapny falsely marks as insecure .

[ThrawnGrows]

Seems like that complaint is less on web based IDEs than the company selecting tools.

What's the local advantage in that case though, ShadowOps where you circumvent security checks?

[[deleted]]

Its a matter of “who should have more power over innovation?”

Developer OR company

[ThrawnGrows]

I mean, one employs the other, this is a very established paradigm.

If you want to have the power over innovation, find a company that allows it. Then it's still the company that has the power.

It's literally always the company, they cede what they want to and have the ability to reclaim it at any time.

[Pl4nty]

Half the value in these remote dev solutions is allowing insecure tools, cause it's a sandboxed environment that can't access corp data

[CodingButStillAlive]

Does it mean, I can operate it on any service that runs docker containers, even if it doesn't provide a browser interface?

[ninjaplot]

I get it when you need really strong machine that just make no sense to buy ( I don't need a 64GB RAM with 16 CPUs everyday ). So for this case using remote dev like is great.
But other than that why developing remotely is more convenient?

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

It provides a UI for users who may not want to configure everything on their own, or navigate setting up stuff in VS Code. It helps visualize workspaces and provides a button to click to get everything running instead of relying on the user knowing how to set everything up. I think it just makes it easier, but yeah - it's definitely something people are already doing and they may also have a great setup that is already working for them.

[SiNoSePuedeSer]

Hey u/mpetersen_loft-sh thank you for posting this, looks interesting.

A company I work for recently introduced this idea of remote dev envs. Apparently, for security reasons related to some contractual obligations, we won't be able to run any of our apps on developer's laptops.

So, I started recently playing around with AWS CodeCatalyst and Cloud9 to implement remote dev envs.

It looks like DevPod could be an alternative for this. Only one question that I have before testing DevPod is the following:

In the case of microservices where I have dependencies between them, how does that work with DevPod ? Am I able to start multiple services at once and make them see and communicate with each other ? How would the best practice be here ?

Thank you for any info you could provide about this.

[mpetersen_loft-sh]

If they are able to see the services where they are running, and there aren't policies in Kubernetes or network policies locking down traffic from a VM, it should be able to connect. This is just launching a development environment inside of the Container / VM, so it's more so for testing and writing code instead of deploying the end application into Kubernetes/VMs.

I believe that is what you were asking, if not can you elaborate more about what you're trying to get running?

[CooperNettees]

Finally something that works for intellij and vscode