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coder · bpmct · Apr 26, 2022 · Apr 22, 2022 · Apr 22, 2022 · Apr 22, 2022
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+# About Coder
+
+Coder is an open source platform for creating and managing developer workspaces on your preferred clouds and servers.
+
+By building on top of common development inferfaces (SSH) and infrastructure tools (Terraform), Coder aims to make the process of **provisioning** and **accessing** remote workspaces approachable for organizations of various sizes and stages of cloud-native maturity.
+
+> ⚠️ Coder v2 is in alpha and not ready for production use. You may be interested in [Coder v1](https://coder.com/docs) or [code-server](https://github.com/cdr/code-server).
+
+## Why remote development
+
+Migrating from local developer machines to remote servers is an increasingly common solution for developers[^1] and organizations[^2] alike. Remote development has a number of benefits:
+
+- Speed: Server-grade compute speeds up operations in software development such as IDE loads, compiles, builds, and running large apps (monolyths or many microservices). 
+
+- Environment management: Onboarding & troubleshooting development environments is automated using tools such as Terraform, nix, Docker, devcontainers, etc.
+
+- Security: Source code and other data can be centralized on private servers or cloud, instead of local developer machines.
+
+- Compatability: Remote workspaces share infrastructure configuration with other developer, staging, and production environments, reducing configuration drift.
+
+- Accessibility: Devices such as light notebooks, Chromebooks, and iPads connect to remote workspaces via browser-based IDEs or remote IDE extensions.
+
+## Why Coder?
+
+The added layer of infrastructure control is a key differentiator from Coder v1 and other remote IDE platforms. This gives admins the ability to:
+
+- support ARM, Windows, Linux, and MacOS workspaces
+- modify pod/container spec: add disks, manage network policy, environment variables
+- use VM/dedicated workspaces: develop with Kernel features, container knowledge not required
+- enable persistant workspaces: just like a local machine, but faster and in the cloud
+
+Coder includes [production-ready templates](./examples) for use on Kubernetes, AWS EC2, Google Cloud, Azure, and more.
+
+## What Coder is not
+
+- Coder is an infrastructure as code (IaC) platform. Terraform is the first IaC *provisioner* in Coder. As a result, Coder admins can define any Terraform resources can as Coder workspaces. 
+
+- Coder is not a DevOps/CI platform. Coder workspaces can follow best practices for cloud workloads, but Coder is not responsible for how you define or deploy the software you write.
+
+- Coder is not an online IDE. Instead, Coder has strong support for common editors such as VS Code, vim, and JetBrains, over HTTPS or SSH.
+
+- Coder is not a collaboration platform. You can continue using git and IDE extensions for pull requests, code reviews, and pair programming.
+
+- Coder is not SaaS/fully-managed. Install Coder on your cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) or datacenter.
+
+[^1]: alexellis.io: [The Internet is my computer](https://blog.alexellis.io/the-internet-is-my-computer/)
+
+[^2]: slack.engineering: [Development environments at Slack](https://slack.engineering/development-environments-at-slack)