When I first heard about “cloud IDEs,” I was skeptical. After all, a decade of local editors, carefully tweaked dotfiles, and customized plugins had made my laptop feel like home. The idea of coding through a browser felt fragile, laggy, and honestly, a little untrustworthy.

But six months ago, I took the plunge. Our team was expanding, onboarding remote contributors, and wrestling with environment drift — the infamous “it works on my machine” problem. We needed something better. I decided to trial a cloud IDE as my primary dev environment.

Now, half a year later, I’m not looking back. Here’s how I chose, and why I’m staying.

Defining the Requirements

I wasn’t willing to compromise on developer experience. For me, a cloud IDE had to deliver:

• Reliable, low-latency editing

• Full Linux-based environment, so I could run Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, etc.

• Git integration as good as local

• Easy onboarding for new team members

• Solid security — no source code on a random disk in someone’s laptop

• Customizable dotfiles and personal extensions

I also wanted zero surprises with billing or vendor lock-in.

Narrowing Down the Options

I did a thorough review, looking at:

• GitHub Codespaces

• Gitpod

• Coder

• JetBrains Gateway

• Eclipse Che

I spun up test projects on each, tested responsiveness, tried building containers, and paid attention to even the smallest friction points — keybindings, shell lag, port forwarding, debugging UX.

Codespaces had a tight GitHub integration, which was appealing, but the pricing could get steep at scale. JetBrains Gateway gave me a familiar IDE feel, but felt a bit heavy on network resources. Gitpod balanced flexibility and performance, while still letting me connect my own infrastructure.

After a week of trial and error, I landed on Gitpod running on our private Kubernetes cluster. It gave us:

• consistent dev environments

• ephemeral workspaces

• the same dotfiles I had locally

• flexible resource limits for heavier backend services

• no vendor lock-in, since I could self-host

What Surprised Me

The big shock was how much environment parity improved onboarding. New hires no longer spent two days installing Node, Docker, or the right .NET SDK. Instead, they clicked a link and had a working environment, built exactly to spec, in under 5 minutes.

Second, the performance was honestly excellent. Coding through a fast VS Code browser session, backed by a beefy cloud instance, was smoother than my laptop on complex container builds.

Third, security improved. There was no risk of local disk compromise or stolen laptops with source code, since everything ran inside secure workspaces. That alone justified a good chunk of the switch.

Why I’m Staying

After half a year, I’ve realized I genuinely prefer the cloud IDE workflow.

• Consistent: every project spins up the same

• Fast: cloud instances can throw more cores at builds

• Secure: no code stored on my local machine

• Portable: I can code from a Chromebook, tablet, or a borrowed device

• Collaborative: sharing a workspace with a colleague for pair programming takes seconds

The old dream of “your dev environment anywhere” is finally real — not a half-baked promise.

What to Watch Out For

Of course, it’s not perfect. If your internet is unstable, you’ll feel it immediately. Local-first tools still make sense for people with slow or unreliable connections. Also, costs can spiral if you don’t manage workspace lifespans carefully.

But for my day-to-day — cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, IaC, microservices — it’s a huge win.

Final Thoughts

For years, my dev setup was a fortress of local customizations. Moving it to the cloud seemed unthinkable. Today, I wouldn’t go back.

If you’re evaluating cloud IDEs, I’d encourage you to define exactly what matters for your team: consistency, onboarding speed, security, or flexibility. Then run real-world tests — build, debug, ship code — before you commit.

My advice? Don’t knock cloud IDEs until you give them a serious trial. They might surprise you — they definitely surprised me.