head to head · open source
devpod vs sidex
devpod has 15,310 GitHub stars, 589 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. sidex has 3,165 stars, 266 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. devpod leads on adoption by 384% (15,310 vs 3,165 stars). devpod is written in Go under MPL-2.0; sidex is written in TypeScript under MIT. devpod has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, sidex 8%. sidex was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ide, vscode), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| devpod | sidex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2025-11-14 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 589 | ⑂ 266 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick devpod if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sidex if
- You want the sidex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sidex fits your workflow better
About devpod
Website • Quickstart • Documentation • Blog • 𝕏 (Twitter) • Slack We are hiring! Come build the future of remote development environments with us. DevPod is a client only tool to create reproducible developer environments based on a devcontainer.json on any backend. Each developer environment runs in a container and is specified through a devcontainer.json. Through DevPod providers, these environments can be created on any backend, such as the local computer, a Kubernetes cluster, any reachable remote machine, or in a VM in the cloud. You can think of DevPod as the glue that connects your local IDE to a machine…
read the full devpod overview →
About sidex
SideX VSCode's workbench, without Electron. Why · What's Working · AI Agent · Getting Started · How It's Built · Contributing · Discord SideX is a port of Visual Studio Code that replaces Electron with Tauri — a Rust backend and OS's native webview. The same TypeScript workbench, the same editor, terminal, and Git integration, running without a bundled browser. Early release. Core editing and the terminal are solid. The extension host and debugger are still in progress. See What's Working for the full picture. Why VSCode's memory useage is almost entirely from its bundled Chromium, not the editor itself. Tauri…
read the full sidex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devpod or sidex more popular?
devpod has 15,310 GitHub stars and sidex has 3,165. devpod has the larger community by that measure.
Are devpod and sidex free?
Both are open source. devpod is licensed under MPL-2.0 and sidex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devpod and sidex?
devpod is written in Go and sidex in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, devpod or sidex?
Choose devpod if you want the larger community (15,310 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose sidex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.