DevPod is a recently launched open-source project by Loft Labs, which provides software tools for platform engineers.



This innovative tool enables engineers to manage and codify development environments that are reusable for any infrastructure. Unlike other similar tools, DevPod operates entirely on the client-side, without needing server-side setup.

It allows developers to operate DevPod directly on their machines and connect to cloud platforms such as AWS or remote systems like Kubernetes without relying on a middle server-side component. The team behind Loft Labs, who had previously contributed to projects like vcluster and DevSpace in the Kubernetes space, expanded their portfolio with the introduction of DevPod.

Loft Labs developed DevPod because they couldn't find any infrastructure-independent, pure open-source solutions that met the needs of both open-source contributors and enterprise engineers. DevPod distinguishes itself from other development environment offerings by providing a way to define dev environments that can run on any cloud infrastructure or on a localhost machine using Docker or Kubernetes. Developers have complete control over their environments regardless of their provider.

A key feature of DevPod is its similarity to Terraform, where developers can define their dev-environment-as-code and run it anywhere they want. The lightweight control tool also allows automatic sleep mode, where inactive connections trigger the turning off of the environment.

Developers familiar with pre-configured development environments like those in Codespaces can seamlessly switch between local and cloud-hosted environments with DevPod. Developers only need a devcontainer.json file in their project to launch a dev environment on any cloud or even locally, providing a reproducible experience for anyone working on the project, regardless of where they spin up the environment.

DevPod is a tool that enables developers to connect local IDEs to machines or containers for development purposes. Depending on the project's needs, developers can build a workspace locally on their computer, create a VM in the cloud, connect to a remote machine, or build a dev container in Kubernetes. Providers are used by DevPod to map the definitions in the devcontainer to the json infrastructure of the user's choice. DevPod service providers can create these containers on a local system, a remote machine, or a public or private cloud. Developers can even add new features to DevPod and create custom providers.

According to Loft Labs, DevPod offers several advantages over other hosted services such as GitHub Codespaces, GitPod, JetBrains Spaces, or Google Cloud Workstations. Developers can save expenses since DevPod is free, rely on any cloud provider without the risk of vendor lock-in, and work locally without depending on a cloud provider. DevPod supports various IDEs, including VSCode and the entire JetBrains suite, and additional IDEs can be accessed through ssh. Since it is a lightweight desktop application that runs just on a developer's machine, there is no need to install a server backend with DevPod. Additionally, DevPod is entirely expandable and open source, so developers can create their own providers if necessary. Finally, DevPod has a comprehensive feature set, including prebuilds, auto inactivity shutdown, git and docker credential synchronization, and more.

DevPod was developed by Loft Labs to customize the development container using the devcontainer.json standard, which is also used by other tools like VSCode dev containers or GitHub Codespaces. This means that developers can reuse projects that spin up a workspace in DevPod using this setup. Even if no configuration is detected, DevPod will try to detect the programming language used and offer a suitable template for users to start with.