April 2025 Summaries

Gitpod has launched a new architecture called "app.gitpod.io" which is now referred to as simply "Gitpod", dropping the name "Flex". This change includes a Core tier, available as a fully managed SaaS deployment or self-hosted for power users or smaller teams. The new architecture offers improved performance, security, and cost savings, including up to 896 cores and 12TB of RAM per environment, with GPU support. Gitpod is now generally available in the Enterprise tier, allowing users to migrate from the previous "Gitpod Classic" version, which will sunset in September 2025. The platform offers three clear ways to use it: Free for individuals and small teams, Core for power users and small teams, and Enterprise for large orgs and teams with security and compliance requirements.

In October 2024, Gitpod introduced a significant update with the Gitpod Flex architecture, initially available for Free and Flex plan users and now extended to Enterprise users, effectively replacing the previous Gitpod Classic framework. This transition involves renaming the new platform simply as Gitpod and introducing a Core tier that caters to power users or smaller teams, available as both a fully managed SaaS deployment and a self-hosted option. The new Gitpod architecture offers substantial performance improvements, reduced infrastructure costs, and enhanced support for modern AI workflows, emphasizing VM-level isolation for better security and simplified deployment across multi-region cloud environments. Users of the former Gitpod Classic can expect benefits like faster development environments, significant cost savings, and support for AI coding assistants while maintaining the flexibility to run Classic and the new version simultaneously to ensure a smooth transition. With this unified architecture, Gitpod now provides three distinct offerings—Free, Core, and Enterprise—to suit various user needs, all aimed at automating and standardizing development environments efficiently and securely.

Gitpod + Island is a cloud development environment combined with an enterprise browser that replaces traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for improving security posture and enhancing developer productivity. The combination moves source code storage off local machines into a private network, automates and standardizes environment setup and maintenance, grants secure access to the dev environment through a controlled browser on any device, and provides a superior developer experience without compromising on security.

With a single click, Gitpod provides automated and standardized development environments fully configured with the necessary tools and dependencies, helping 1.7 million developers worldwide ship software faster. A new SaaS offering is launching this summer, allowing users to access powerful development environments that exceed laptop performance with free-tier and pay-as-you-go options using Gitpod-hosted compute. This deployment option offers maximum flexibility, enabling users to run standardized environments on their computer, use Gitpod as a SaaS offering, or self-host in their VPC for maximum security and compliance. When using Gitpod as a SaaS offering, users gain instant access and simple setup, powerful compute resources that outperform laptops, including GPUs, and enhanced security of source code and data by reducing the attack surface and exfiltration risks.

The three pricing tiers offered by Gitpod, Free, Core (coming soon), and Enterprise, cater to different needs of organizations. The Free tier is suitable for individual developers and small teams with limited usage requirements, while the Core tier is designed for professional development teams that want a SaaS offering without advanced security and compliance features. In contrast, the Enterprise tier is tailored to organizations with strict compliance requirements, providing self-hosting, multi-region support, enhanced security features, and premium support. All tiers share common features such as unlimited member invitations, configuration of development environments using Dev Container and Automations, and creation of local development environments through Gitpod Desktop.