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Developer Tools · head to head

Ona (formerly Gitpod) vs Zebra BI

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
Zebra BI logo

Zebra BI

Business Intelligence

IBCS-based charting add-ins that replace native visuals in Power BI, Excel and PowerPoint

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit Zebra BIFull review

The short version

  • Free plans on both; paid from $20/mo and $50/mo.
  • Only Ona (formerly Gitpod) lists ephemeral environments; only Zebra BI lists IBCS-compliant visuals.
  • 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 Zebra BI actually diverge.

Attributes where Ona (formerly Gitpod) and Zebra BI differ
AttributeOna (formerly Gitpod)Zebra BI
Pricing modelPer month by compute unitPer year by licensed user count
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWSWeb, Windows, macOS
CategoryDeveloper ToolsBusiness Intelligence

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

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 Zebra BI

  • IBCS-compliant visuals
  • Variance analysis
  • Small multiples
  • Integrated commentary
  • Excel and PowerPoint add-in
  • Free personal edition

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 Zebra BI
  • Running several coding agents in parallel against real databases and services instead of on a laptopnot Zebra BI
  • Keeping source code off contractor and offshore laptops by moving the whole environment into a controlled accountnot Zebra BI
  • Reproducing a hard-to-configure toolchain for a short-lived project without polluting anyone machinenot Zebra BI

Zebra BI

  • A controlling function standardising every management report on IBCS notation so variance is read the same way across divisionsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • Monthly board packs where actual against budget against forecast must appear in one chart without three separate visualsnot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • An Excel-first finance team that wants IBCS charts without migrating to Power BInot Ona (formerly Gitpod)
  • A PowerPoint deck that needs charts to refresh from the underlying model rather than being pasted imagesnot 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

Zebra BI

  • Every viewer needs a licence, not only report authors, so distributing a report to fifty managers means buying the fifty-user bracket regardless of how few people build reports
  • Power BI and Office are licensed separately, so a finance team using both Excel and Power BI pays two subscriptions for the same chart grammar
  • The visuals deliberately restrict chart types to enforce IBCS, which makes Zebra BI unsuitable for exploratory analysis or any team that wants unconventional visualisations
  • List prices rise after the first year on the discounted tiers, so the second-year renewal is materially higher than the figure that got the purchase approved
  • As a third-party custom visual it depends on Microsoft not changing the Power BI visuals API, and organisations with locked-down tenants often need IT approval before a custom visual can be used at all

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

Zebra BI

Free
  • PersonalFree
    • Single user
    • Zebra BI branding on visuals
    • Limited sharing and collaboration
  • Power BI Starter$50/mo
    • Ten users
    • No watermark
    • Standard support
  • Power BI Business$316/mo
    • Fifty users
    • Business feature set
    • Priority support
  • Office Starter$68/mo
    • Ten users
    • Excel and PowerPoint add-ins
    • Billed annually

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 Zebra BI if

  • You need ibcs-compliant visuals.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Windows, macOS.
  • You also want variance analysis.
Zebra BI review

Questions people ask

Is Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Zebra BI better?
Neither clearly leads. Ona (formerly Gitpod) starts at Free and Zebra BI at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Zebra BI?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) starts at Free and Zebra BI at Free.
Does Ona (formerly Gitpod) or Zebra BI run on more platforms?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, AWS. Zebra BI runs on Web, Windows, macOS.
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 Zebra BI is typically brought in for.
What can Ona (formerly Gitpod) do that Zebra BI cannot?
Ona (formerly Gitpod) covers Ephemeral environments, Agent sessions, Bring your own cloud, Devcontainer standard. Zebra BI covers IBCS-compliant visuals, Variance analysis, Small multiples, Integrated commentary.

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.

Zebra BI: Do report viewers need a licence?

Yes. All users, designers and viewers, need one. Only anonymous viewers of publicly published reports are exempt.

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.

Zebra BI: Is there a free version?

Yes, a single-user personal edition with Zebra BI branding and limited sharing.

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.

Zebra BI: Are Excel and Power BI covered by one licence?

No. The Office add-in and the Power BI visuals are separate subscriptions.

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.

Zebra BI: What is IBCS?

International Business Communication Standards, a notation standard for business charts that Zebra BI implements by default.

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