Nimbus is an easy way to code and manage environments on cloud VMs that are configured for projects you’re working on.
How does Nimbus work?
Nimbus is easy to use and flexible enough for any developer.
- Each environment is delivered on a VMs that works just like local development - its persistent but you can treat it ephemerally.
- Create a ‘template’ that tells us what kind of machine and OS you want.
- Load up a ‘workspace’, which is a cloud machine near you for the lowest latency possible.
- Jump into that server and get to work/play 😄
- At any point, you can ‘snapshot’ the image and use that as a ‘template’ for future workspaces.
Heres a video our founder put together:
What problems does it solve?
Big tech companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, Shopify, Slack, Dropbox, etc.) have in-house cloud environment solutions.
- This lets engineers spend more time on software design and writing production code and less time waiting, testing or troubleshooting.
- Nimbus brings the same convenience to everybody else.
The three biggest pains Nimbus alleviates are compatibility issues, scaling challenges and not having a powerful enough dev machine.
- Compatibility issues touch hardware, software, and users. The leading cause is poorly supported tooling on M1 and M2 architecture or a varied fleet of Mac, Linux and Windows devices of various specs. This is made more complex by tool/package updates that break support for that fleet and the impossible task of writing and maintaining perfect documentation.
- Scaling challenges build on compatibility issues. Engineers can spend days to get access and setup environments for every project they touch. Containers help but are only part of the solution. And then, once everything is set up, important data and code sits on the laptop - which is the second most vulnerable endpoint in companies (after smartphones)
- Nimbus lets engineers always pull the right environment, eliminates local env management and debugging, and makes environments portable - engineers can work from any machine because the code runs and stays in the cloud.
How is Nimbus Different?
Local Dev (e.g. Laptops)
Nimbus
Gitpod
Codespaces
Use Case?
Status quo way of working
Accelerate dev team speed and collaboration
Automate dev environment setup
Improve build and processing speeds
How does it work?
It’s how everyone works today!
Linux or Windows VMs
Most like local. If it works on local, it works on Nimbus
Linux containers
Limiting one workspace to one repo
Containers on private Linux VM
Multiple repos per environment
It’s how everyone works today!
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Workspace persistence?
Persistent
Persistent
Ephemeral
Ephemeral only
Ephemeral only
Workspace specifications?
Flexible!
RAM (up to 32gb)
CPU (up to 8 core)
RAM (up to 12gb)
CPU (up to 8 core)
RAM (up to 64GB)
CPU (up to 16 core)
Local file sync?
✅
✅ via RSync
Root access?
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Organizations/teams
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Beta
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Configure workspace resources/limits?
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Automate operation and timeouts?
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Templated workspaces?
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Share workspace and collaborate?
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Protect shared port URLs?
✅
Docker in workspaces
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Pre-built workspaces
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Snapshot workspaces
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Managed service cloud
N/A
AWS (Best for performance and region options)
GCP
Azure (runner-up)
Self-hosted
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Editors & IDEs supported
All
VS Code (extension)
Jetbrains (via Gateway)
Web VS Code (soon)
VS Code
Jetbrains IDEs
VS Code only
Customizations and integrations
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