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Developer Tools · head to head

Ona (formerly Gitpod) vs Vespa

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
Vespa logo

Vespa

Databases

Distributed AI search platform for retrieval, ranking, and inference

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit VespaFull review

The short version

  • Vespa is an open-source distributed serving engine.
  • Vespa is free; Ona (formerly Gitpod) starts at $20/mo.
  • Only Ona (formerly Gitpod) lists ephemeral environments; only Vespa lists vector search.
  • Where Vespa falls short: pricing not publicly listed, requires contacting sales.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Ona (formerly Gitpod) and Vespa differ
AttributeOna (formerly Gitpod)Vespa
Pricing modelPer month by compute unitContact-sales
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWSWeb, Self-hosted
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes).

Not yet recorded: founded for Ona (formerly Gitpod).

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 Ona (formerly Gitpod)

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

Only in Vespa

  • Vector search
  • Text and structured search
  • Machine-learned ranking
  • Real-time serving
  • SQL interface
  • Automatic scaling
  • Open-source

What people use each for

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

Ona (formerly Gitpod)

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

Vespa

  • Build RAG systems with semantic search over documentsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Power e-commerce search with ML rankingnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Create recommendation engines for personalizationnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Implement real-time search for news or feedsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Deploy private semantic search over sensitive datanot Ona (formerly Gitpod)

Where each one falls short

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

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

Vespa

  • Pricing not publicly listed, requires contacting sales
  • Steeper learning curve compared to simpler search tools
  • Operational complexity for self-hosted deployments
  • Smaller ecosystem compared to cloud-native alternatives

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Vespa

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Vespa review.

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Vespa if

  • You need vector search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted.
  • You also want text and structured search.
Vespa review

Questions people ask

Is Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Vespa better?
Neither clearly leads. Ona (formerly Gitpod) starts at Free and Vespa at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Vespa?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) starts at Free and Vespa at Free.
Does Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Vespa run on more platforms?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS. Vespa runs on Web, Self-hosted.
Can I use Ona (formerly Gitpod) for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Ona (formerly Gitpod) best used for?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) is most often used for giving a large engineering team identical, disposable environments so onboarding is a link rather than a two day setup, running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptop, keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled account, reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machine. Of those, giving a large engineering team identical, disposable environments so onboarding is a link rather than a two day setup and running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptop are not what Vespa is typically brought in for.
What can Ona (formerly Gitpod) do that Vespa cannot?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard. Vespa covers Vector search, Text and structured search, Machine-learned ranking, Real-time serving.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Vespa: Is Vespa open-source?

Yes, Vespa is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. The code is available on GitHub, and you can self-host or use the managed cloud service.

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.

Vespa: What latency can Vespa achieve?

Vespa is designed for sub-100 millisecond latencies with thousands of queries per second, suitable for real-time search and recommendation applications.

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.

Vespa: Does Vespa support vector search?

Yes, Vespa provides native vector search capabilities alongside text, structured data, and tensor operations for building comprehensive search and AI applications.

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.

Vespa: What is the pricing model for Vespa Cloud?

Vespa Cloud pricing is not publicly listed and requires contacting their sales team to discuss your specific use case and scale requirements.

Source
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