Developer Tools · head to head
Earthly vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)
Ona (formerly Gitpod)
Developer Tools
Cloud development environments repositioned as a control plane for software engineering agents
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact; 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: Earthly covers Policy as code, 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 Earthly and Ona (formerly Gitpod) actually diverge.
| Attribute | Earthly | Ona (formerly Gitpod) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | No pricing published on website | Per month by compute unit |
| Platforms | Web, CLI | Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud Platform |
| Founded | 2020 | Unknown |
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer 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 Earthly
- Policy as code
- Multi-stage enforcement
- AI agent governance
- Repository-wide policies
- Incident response automation
- Compliance management
- Earthfiles build tool
- Satellites
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.
Earthly
- Enforcing engineering standards across AI and human developersnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
- Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
- Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
- Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot 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 Earthly
- Running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptopnot Earthly
- Keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled accountnot Earthly
- Reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machinenot Earthly
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Earthly
- Pricing model not published; requires sales contact
- Earthly Lunar is a recent launch (2025) with limited track record
- Primarily GitHub-focused; limited integration with other platforms
- No public documentation on pricing or feature tiers
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
Earthly
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the Earthly 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 Earthly if
- You need policy as code.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, CLI.
- You also want multi-stage enforcement.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Earthly or Ona (formerly Gitpod) better?
- Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and Ona (formerly Gitpod) at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Earthly or Ona (formerly Gitpod)?
- Earthly starts at Free and Ona (formerly Gitpod) at Free.
- Does Earthly or Ona (formerly Gitpod) run on more platforms?
- Earthly runs on Web, CLI. Ona (formerly Gitpod) runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud Platform.
- Can I use Earthly for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Earthly best used for?
- Earthly is most often used for enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers, automating incident response procedures across all repositories, embedding compliance requirements into development workflows, standardizing build processes with earthfiles. Of those, enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers and automating incident response procedures across all repositories are not what Ona (formerly Gitpod) is typically brought in for.
- What can Earthly do that Ona (formerly Gitpod) cannot?
- Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Earthly: What is the difference between Earthfiles and Earthly Lunar?
Earthfiles is an open-source build tool that reached 12,000 GitHub stars and is used by companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Databricks. Earthly Lunar is a separate governance platform launched in 2025 for enforcing standards across development workflows.
SourceOna (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.
Earthly: How does Earthly Lunar enforce standards?
Lunar converts engineering standards, compliance requirements, and processes documented in AGENTS.md files, wikis, and incident postmortems into enforceable guardrails that apply consistently across repositories and development stages.
SourceOna (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.
Earthly: What is the pricing for Earthly Lunar?
Pricing is not published on the website. Interested customers should contact Earthly's sales team for current pricing and feature tiers.
SourceOna (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.
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.
Related pages
More on Ona (formerly Gitpod)
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