Space, the version of JetBrains on remote container development environments, is now available on-premises as a beta for all organizations that prefer to have full control of their tools rather than relying on third-party cloud services .
Since Space On-Premises will be deployed within the user’s network, it focuses more on its nature in containers than on providing a remote development experience. In other words, Space On-Premises aims to keep the promise of commercializing development environments and facilitate the creation of complete environments in a short time, both for first-time or occasional collaborators, and through machines. for regular contributors.
With this introduction, JetBrains is addressing one of the most common forms of criticism of remote development environments such as JetBrains Space Cloud or GitHub Codespaces, in particular the loss of privacy and ownership of some parts of developer work. Being on-premise means that the user maintains full control of the deployment, although this will come at a cost to the operation of the system.
Space On-Premises supports most of the features provided by Space Cloud, including Git hosting, code reviews and troubleshooting, package management, team collaboration, and more. However, there are some limitations when it comes to features that require accommodation on JetBrains. Specifically, at the moment it can only use external workers for automation tasks.
Most importantly, the beta version does not yet support development environments, although this feature will be available in the public version, JetBrains says. This is especially relevant for any developer or organization that wants to test the product in its current beta, as the ability to manage and create ready-to-use development environments is one of the most appealing features of this type of products.
Space On-Premises is presented in two ways, with support for Docker Compose or Kubernetes. The Docker Compose version is best suited, says JetBrains, for quick testing or for smaller organizations. The benefit of Docker Compose lies in the simplicity of its configuration and management, which is based on a YAML file that describes the available services. The Kubernetes version, on the other hand, is more flexible and supports larger organizations that need their facilities to scale.
While current Space users don’t have facilities to migrate from Space Cloud to Space On-Premises, this is something JetBrains is currently working on and will be available sometime in the future.
JetBrains plans to run the beta for 3-6 months, during which time the product is available under a free license. At the end of this period, Space On-Premises will remain free for organizations of up to 10 users and will offer specific plans for larger organizations and businesses.