Coder

What it is for

Coder is a self-host workspace desk: you pick a template, click Create workspace, and Community is $0 (unlimited self-hosted workspaces on your infra). Use it when the job is workspaces you start at $0, not when you need a $20 chat seat.

What makes it unique: the cover is the official Coder Templates list (analytics, api-services, Create workspace) from the workspace-management still — not a pricing card. The table itself is ops of Templates.

Key features

• Templates — an environment-as-code you start from (cover; pricing Community). One blueprint. Variables and the cover filters are ops of this. Terraform expertise is not required on Template Builder (official video).
• Workspaces — a running desktop/web IDE from a template (pricing Provision unlimited self-hosted workspaces). A machine, not the blueprint. VS Code / JetBrains / Cursor sit here as the IDE. The CLI is install.
• Agents — a coding agent you run inside a workspace (Coder Agents; pricing). A job, not a human workspace. Community/Premium print a 5-agent cap; AI Premium removes it (FAQ).
• AI Governance — a gateway that audits prompts and tool use (pricing Keep every AI action accountable). A policy, not a workspace. Included on Community as printed; deeper controls sit on Premium.
• Self-host — the OSS control plane you run; Premium/AI Premium are licensed add-ons (GitHub; pricing). A deploy, not a template. Homelab licenses are SKU of Community.

Seats on Premium print as annually per user with no public dollar on the static card we fetched — do not invent a Premium dollar. Community is $0.

Who it's for

Best fit: platform teams who will stay on Community $0 (unlimited self-hosted workspaces, 5 agents, GitHub/Discord support) while they Create workspace from a first template, then talk to sales for Premium when they need HA, workspace proxies, multi-org RBAC, and SLA support.

Pricing

Verified 2026-10-22 (Asia/Shanghai) from coder.com/pricing. The static cards we fetched are Community / Premium / AI Premium.

• Community — $0 (“Free”). Open source. Unlimited self-hosted workspaces on infrastructure you own. Environments as code. Run Claude Code / Codex / Cursor inside ephemeral workspaces. VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, Jupyter. Includes AI Governance. Community support on GitHub and Discord. FAQ: 5-agent cap on Community and Premium.
• Premium — “Annually per user.” Everything in Community, plus audit prompts / restrict access / manage agent costs, HA and workspace proxies, multi-org RBAC, OIDC sync, audit logging, quotas, SLA-backed support. Unlocks Coder Agents. No public Premium dollar printed on the static HTML — confirm checkout / Get a demo. Do not invent it.
• AI Premium — custom. Everything in Premium, plus native Coder Agents in your control plane, headless agents via API, network-isolated agent jobs, bring your own models (Anthropic / OpenAI / Azure / Bedrock). Removes the 5-agent cap (FAQ). Start a trial / contact.

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Limitations / costs

• Community is $0 and a 5-agent cap. Unlimited workspaces is not unlimited agents.
• Premium’s per-user dollar is not on the static card. Treat it as talk-to-sales, not a invented seat.
• A workspace desk, not a serverless sandbox API. For ephemeral sandboxes see E2B or Daytona.

Alternatives

• E2B — ephemeral sandboxes when you will not run Coder templates on your cluster.
• Daytona — cloud workspaces when you want a hosted desk, not Community $0 self-host.
• Railway — a service canvas when the job is a deploy, not an IDE workspace.

Official tutorial

Official Coder channel video: Coder Template Builder: Create Templates Without Terraform Expertise (oEmbed author: Coder). First-party template walkthrough; the Templates still is the cover.

Written path: coder.com/pricing plus the workspace still.

Website

https://coder.com

Repository

https://github.com/coder/coder

Source

Catalog row curated for AI Tools Nav. Cover is the official Coder Templates list. Dollars checked on coder.com/pricing (Community $0; Premium annually/user with no static dollar; AI Premium custom). Tutorial oEmbed author: Coder.

Last verified

2026-10-22 (Asia/Shanghai) editorial check.