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Developer Tools · head to head

Cortex vs Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Cortex logo

Cortex

Developer Tools

Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services

From
On request
Rated
-
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
Rated
-
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: Cortex pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first.; 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: Cortex covers Service catalogue, 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 Cortex and Ona (formerly Gitpod) actually diverge.

Attributes where Cortex and Ona (formerly Gitpod) differ
AttributeCortexOna (formerly Gitpod)
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by compute unit
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud Platform

Identical on both: 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 Cortex

  • Service catalogue
  • Scorecards
  • Initiatives
  • Self-service templates
  • Query language
  • Eng intelligence
  • Integrations layer
  • On-call and ownership mapping

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.

Cortex

  • A platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a Kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of servicesnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot 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 Cortex
  • Running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptopnot Cortex
  • Keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled accountnot Cortex
  • Reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machinenot Cortex

Where each one falls short

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

Cortex

  • Pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first.
  • The catalogue is only as accurate as the metadata you supply, so an organisation with inconsistent repository conventions spends its first quarter cleaning data before any scorecard means anything.
  • Scorecards create political friction: publishing a per-team grade turns an engineering standard into a performance metric, and teams will game the rules rather than fix the underlying issue.
  • It is closed source and hosted, so organisations with strict data residency or air-gap requirements have limited options compared with running Backstage themselves.
  • Value scales with organisation size, so a company with fifty engineers and thirty services will find the catalogue tells them nothing they did not already know while still paying an enterprise contract.

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

Cortex

On request
  • Cortex$undefined/year
    • Service catalogue and ownership mapping
    • Scorecards and initiatives
    • Self-service templates

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 Cortex if

  • You need service catalogue.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want scorecards.
Cortex 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 Cortex or Ona (formerly Gitpod) better?
Neither clearly leads. Cortex starts at On request and Ona (formerly Gitpod) at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cortex or Ona (formerly Gitpod)?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Cortex and Free for Ona (formerly Gitpod).
Does Cortex or Ona (formerly Gitpod) run on more platforms?
Cortex runs on Web, API. 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. Cortex starts at On request.
What is Cortex best used for?
Cortex is most often used for a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services, an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions, enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident review, replacing a self-hosted backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgraded. Of those, a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services and an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions are not what Ona (formerly Gitpod) is typically brought in for.
What can Cortex do that Ona (formerly Gitpod) cannot?
Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates. Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cortex: How is Cortex different from Backstage?

Backstage is an open source framework you build and staff. Cortex is a hosted product with scorecards and initiatives out of the box and no platform team required to keep it running.

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.

Cortex: Is pricing published?

No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.

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.

Cortex: Can it self-host?

It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.

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.

Cortex: What is the main adoption risk?

Bad or missing service metadata. The catalogue and every scorecard on top of it inherit whatever quality your repositories already have.

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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