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Technology · head to head

Drift vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Drift logo

Drift

Technology

The Conversation Cloud

From
$2500/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
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
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Drift product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended; 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.
  • They diverge on capability: Drift covers Live chat, Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Drift and Ona (formerly Gitpod) differ
AttributeDriftOna (formerly Gitpod)
Starting price$2500/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownPer month by compute unit
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud Platform
CategoryTechnologyDeveloper Tools
Founded2015Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Drift

  • Live chat
  • AI chatbots
  • Meeting scheduling
  • Email sequences
  • Visitor intelligence
  • Conversation routing
  • Mobile app
  • Analytics dashboard

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.

Drift

  • Lead qualificationnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Meeting bookingnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Customer supportnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Account-based marketingnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Sales accelerationnot 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 Drift
  • Running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptopnot Drift
  • Keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled accountnot Drift
  • Reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machinenot Drift

Where each one falls short

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

Drift

  • Product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended
  • Mandatory bundling within Salesloft increases cost
  • No free tier available
  • Customer support and knowledge base have been deprioritized
  • Limited to enterprise B2B pipeline generation focus

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

Drift

$2500/month

No published plan breakdown. See the Drift review.

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$20/month
    • From 20 US dollars a month, up to 100 team members
    • Includes 80 to 2,200 recurring compute units a month depending on tier
    • Additional units from 10 US dollars per 40 units
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • 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 Drift if

  • You need live chat.
  • You also want ai chatbots.
Drift review

Choose Ona (formerly Gitpod) if

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

Questions people ask

Is Drift or Ona (formerly Gitpod) better?
Neither clearly leads. Drift starts at $2500/month and Ona (formerly Gitpod) at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Drift or Ona (formerly Gitpod)?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2500/month for Drift and Free for Ona (formerly Gitpod).
Does Drift or Ona (formerly Gitpod) run on more platforms?
Drift runs on Web. Ona (formerly Gitpod) runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud Platform.
Can I use Ona (formerly Gitpod) for free?
Yes. Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Drift starts at $2500/month.
What is Drift best used for?
Drift is most often used for lead qualification, meeting booking, customer support, account-based marketing. Of those, lead qualification and meeting booking are not what Ona (formerly Gitpod) is typically brought in for.
What can Drift do that Ona (formerly Gitpod) cannot?
Drift covers Live chat, AI chatbots, Meeting scheduling, Email sequences. Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Drift: What is the current status of Drift in 2026?

On March 6, 2026, Clari and Salesloft announced the gradual sunset of Drift's conversational marketing solution, with 1mind named as its exclusive AI successor. Drift remains available but its future is limited.

Source
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.

Drift: How much does Drift cost?

Drift pricing starts around $2,500/month ($30,000/year) for Premium chat-only capabilities, with Enterprise plans exceeding $80,000/year. Drift is bundled within Salesloft and billed annually only.

Source
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.

Drift: What features come with Drift Premium?

Premium plans include live chat widget, custom chatbot flows, meeting scheduling with calendar integration, basic playbooks, email sequences, and standard integrations.

Source
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.

Drift: Does Drift offer a free plan?

No, Drift no longer publicly advertises a free plan as of 2026. All plans require annual billing through Salesloft.

Source
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.

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