Softwr

Databases · head to head

Canary Labs vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Canary Labs logo

Canary Labs

Databases

Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees

From
$3000/year
Free plan
No
Visit Canary LabsFull review
Ona (formerly Gitpod) logo

Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Developer Tools

Cloud development environments repositioned as a control plane for software engineering agents

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit Ona (formerly Gitpod)Full review

The short version

  • Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free plan, then $20/mo; Canary Labs starts at $3000/yr.
  • Only Canary Labs lists loss-less compression; only Ona (formerly Gitpod) lists ephemeral environments.
  • Where Canary Labs falls short: it is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Canary Labs and Ona (formerly Gitpod) actually diverge.

Attributes where Canary Labs and Ona (formerly Gitpod) differ
AttributeCanary LabsOna (formerly Gitpod)
Starting price$3000/yearFree
Pricing modelPer tag band per yearPer month by compute unit
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, WebWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS
CategoryDatabasesDeveloper Tools

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Canary Labs

  • Loss-less compression
  • Unlimited clients
  • Store and forward
  • Views service
  • Sparkplug B
  • Calculation engine
  • Axiom
  • ODBC and REST

Only in Ona (formerly Gitpod)

  • Ephemeral environments
  • Agent sessions
  • Bring your own cloud
  • Devcontainer standard
  • Compute unit budgeting
  • Enterprise identity

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Canary Labs

  • A manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a PI System enterprise agreementnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • A water utility replacing SCADA-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next SCADA replacementnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • An Ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboardsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • A plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an auditnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Ona (formerly Gitpod)

  • Giving a large engineering team identical, disposable environments so onboarding is a link rather than a two day setupnot Canary Labs
  • Running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptopnot Canary Labs
  • Keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled accountnot Canary Labs
  • Reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machinenot Canary Labs

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Canary Labs

  • Pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error
  • CustomerCare at 18 percent of licence cost is effectively mandatory on perpetual licences because lapsing it removes upgrades, so the perpetual option is not really a one-time cost
  • The storage format is proprietary; getting data out at volume means the ODBC connector, an additional 2,500 USD one-time or 1,000 USD a year, or writing against the REST API
  • Canary is a small vendor with a limited partner network outside North America, so support coverage and integrator availability in Europe and Asia are thinner than for AVEVA or Ignition
  • It is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates

Ona (formerly Gitpod)

  • Acquisition risk has already materialised: the company closed a sale to OpenAI on 10 August 2026 and now sits inside the Codex team, so nothing public guarantees pricing, continuity or neutrality between model vendors beyond honouring existing commitments
  • Two disruptive changes of direction inside a year, from development environments to agent orchestration and then from independence to acquisition, mean the product a browser IDE buyer originally chose no longer exists in that form
  • The Gitpod Classic sunset on 15 October 2025 required manual conversion of configuration, hand-moved secrets, self-rescued workspace data and a brand new account, which is the clearest available precedent for how the vendor handles deprecation
  • Community self-hosting is finished: the AGPL-3.0 repository is deprecated by its own README, and self-hosted now means a vendor-operated install in your AWS or GCP account, with no Azure, no on-premises and no air-gapped path
  • Pricing is difficult to model because it runs on a compute unit currency where subscription credits expire at the end of the month, the mapping from units to actual compute is not published on the pricing page, and Enterprise is quotation only

Pricing, plan by plan

Canary Labs

$3000/year
  • Subscription, 3,500 tags$3,000/yr
    • Unlimited Axiom clients
    • Unlimited Excel clients
    • Support and upgrades included
  • Perpetual, 3,500 tags$8,730 one-off
    • 7,400 USD licence plus 1,330 USD first-year CustomerCare
    • CustomerCare renews at 18 percent of licence cost per year
    • Unlimited clients
  • Private cloud, 3,500 tags$12,320/yr
    • Hosted by Canary
    • 1,500 USD one-time setup fee per system
    • Scales to around 58,684 USD per year at 60,000 tags
  • Enterprise unlimitedOn request
    • Unlimited tags
    • Negotiated licensing terms
    • Quoted pricing

Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Up to 3 parallel environments
    • Machines up to 4 vCPU, 16 GB memory and 80 GB disk
    • Ona Cloud multi-tenant only
  • Core$20/mo
    • From 20 US dollars a month, up to 100 team members
    • Includes 80 to 2,200 recurring compute units a month depending on tier
    • Additional units from 10 US dollars per 40 units
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Single-tenant deployment in your own AWS or GCP account
    • SAML and OIDC single sign-on
    • Dedicated account management and forward deployed engineers

Which should you pick?

Choose Canary Labs if

  • You need loss-less compression.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want unlimited clients.
Canary Labs review

Choose Ona (formerly Gitpod) if

  • You need ephemeral environments.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS.
  • You also want agent sessions.
Ona (formerly Gitpod) review

Questions people ask

Is Canary Labs or Ona (formerly Gitpod) better?
Neither clearly leads. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year and Ona (formerly Gitpod) at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Canary Labs or Ona (formerly Gitpod)?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3000/year for Canary Labs and Free for Ona (formerly Gitpod).
Does Canary Labs or Ona (formerly Gitpod) run on more platforms?
Canary Labs runs on Windows, Web. Ona (formerly Gitpod) runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS.
Can I use Ona (formerly Gitpod) for free?
Yes. Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year.
What is Canary Labs best used for?
Canary Labs is most often used for a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement, a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement, an ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboards, a plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an audit. Of those, a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement and a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement are not what Ona (formerly Gitpod) is typically brought in for.
What can Canary Labs do that Ona (formerly Gitpod) cannot?
Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Unlimited clients, Store and forward, Views service. Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Canary Labs: What does Canary cost?

8,730 USD for a 3,500 tag perpetual system including first-year CustomerCare, or 3,000 USD a year on subscription.

Ona (formerly Gitpod): Is Gitpod still called Gitpod?

No. It rebranded to Ona in September 2025, and gitpod.io now redirects to ona.com. The company was acquired by OpenAI in a deal that closed on 10 August 2026.

Canary Labs: Are client licences extra?

No. Unlimited Axiom browser clients and unlimited Excel clients are included on every tier.

Ona (formerly Gitpod): Can I still self-host it for free?

No. The AGPL-3.0 self-hosted project is deprecated by its own README. What is offered now is a vendor-operated single-tenant install in your AWS or GCP account on the Enterprise plan.

Canary Labs: Is perpetual cheaper than subscription?

Canary states perpetual pays off after roughly three years, and after that you still pay 18 percent CustomerCare annually.

Ona (formerly Gitpod): What happened to Gitpod Classic?

Pay-as-you-go Classic was switched off on 15 October 2025. Migration required converting gitpod.yml to devcontainer.json, moving secrets by hand, downloading workspace data before the cutoff and creating a new account.

Canary Labs: Does it use lossy compression?

No. Canary stores every collected value rather than approximating the trend, which matters for regulated data retention.

Ona (formerly Gitpod): What does it cost?

Core starts at 20 US dollars a month and includes a monthly allowance of Ona Compute Units, with more from 10 dollars per 40 units. Subscription credits expire monthly. Enterprise is quoted.

Share

Related pages

More on Canary Labs

More on Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Keep looking

Other head to heads