Cloudomation DevStack:
The Coder Alternative

Coder and Cloudomation DevStack are both platforms for creating and managing cloud development environments. Both products offer a UI as well as a Command Line Interface (CLI) for the creation and configuration of CDEs. Developers choose from pre-configured templates that they can start and stop in self-service.

The key differences between Coder and Cloudomation DevStack are the hosting options, the pricing model, the technical basis of the CDEs and the automation options.

Coder only offers self-hosting, while Cloudomation offers self-hosting but also managed on-premise as well as managed cloud (SaaS).

While Cloudomation DevStack is available as commercial software for licence fees, Coder offers its CDE platform as open source free of charge. Cloudomation offers a tiered pricing model through which even smaller companies can obtain the DevStack platform with support and / or as a managed service. With Coder, support and some features are only included in the Enterprise licence.

Cloudomation is recommended for companies that do not want to operate their CDE platform themselves and that want to obtain support – regardless of the hosting variant chosen – without immediately entering into an enterprise pricing package. For companies that operate their CDE platform themselves or large companies, both platforms also offer self-hosted and enterprise variants.

Technically, Cloudomation CDEs are based on VMs in which complex software (e.g. containerised) can run. Coder CDEs are containers. Since version 1.14, Coder also offers container-based VMs (CVMs), i.e. containers that behave like VMs to enable the operation of Docker in CDEs.

For companies that want to run complex software in their CDEs, Cloudomation’s VM approach offers a very flexible environment. Companies that want to run lightweight, simple software in their CDEs and want to take advantage of dynamic scaling of CDEs, e.g. via Kubernetes, the container-based approach of Coder makes sense.

To automate the creation of the CDEs, Coder uses Terraform, an open source software for infrastructure automation. Cloudomation offers the general-purpose and Python-based automation platform Cloudomation Engine from its own product portfolio.

For companies that already have experience with Terraform and only want to automate CDE creation, Coder offers a low barrier to entry. For companies that have specific requirements for the creation of CDEs, or want to implement other automations beyond pure CDE creation via the same platform, Cloudomation offers powerful automation options with the combination of DevStack and Engine.

Tl;dr

Coder is best for:

• Companies that need alot of flexibility in the definition of their CDEs, e.g. be-
  cause they have non-standard or complex deployment models
• Companies that already have experience with Terraform or who already use
  Terraform for production and other deployments
• Companies with dedicated platform engineering teams that can manage the
  Coder platform and provide automation templates for developers as a service

Cloudomation DevStack is best for:

• Development teams that work on complex software and need to deploy it to validate code changes.
• Development teams that want a high degree of flexibility (working with individually favored developer tools, full access to VM by default, access to the Cloudomation Engine automation platform)