

Interest in remote development environments has increased in the last few years, accelerated by the drive towards remote working.

The company is emphasizing integration with JetBrains IDEs, but the default image uses Microsoft’s open source Code-OSS, better known by the name of its official distribution, Visual Studio Code (VS Code). The new service, now in preview, is a VM on Google’s cloud but with no GUI desktop, being designed for access via a web browser or SSH terminal. Google has introduced Cloud Workstations as part of its Cloud Next online event, competing with other online developer environments like GitPod, GitHub Codespaces, or Microsoft DevBoxes.
