Devilbox vs DevPod

Devilbox is a Dockerized LAMP and MEAN stack for local development on Linux, macOS, and Windows hosts. It supports an unlimited number of projects: adding a project directory creates a virtual host without restarting services. New projects get SSL certificates signed by Devilbox's certificate authority, and its built-in wildcard DNS makes project addresses available to the host system.

The stack supports Apache or Nginx with PHP, plus services such as MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, Memcached, and MongoDB. Configuration can be set globally, by service version, or for a specific project. Its intranet includes phpMyAdmin, phpPgAdmin, phpRedMin, Adminer, OpcacheGui, and a GUI for viewing sent emails. Outgoing project email is intercepted and stored locally for review. After the required Docker images are first downloaded, Devilbox can run offline. Its documentation says official Docker images are built nightly and published with available security patches. The free plan is listed at free, with no price or usage limits stated on the opened pages.

DevPod creates repeatable development environments in containers described by devcontainer.json. It can place those environments on the developer’s computer, a reachable remote machine, or a public or private cloud, while the client itself runs locally without a server backend. The software is open source and extensible, with maintained providers for Docker, Kubernetes, SSH, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and DigitalOcean; users can also add providers from GitHub, a URL, or a local provider.yaml file. It works with VS Code and the JetBrains suite, and other IDEs can connect over SSH. Prebuilds, automatic shutdown during inactivity, and Git and Docker credential synchronization are included. Machine providers use secure tunnels, including AWS Instance Connect, Google Cloud IAP, and Azure Bastion. DevPod is free, with desktop downloads for macOS, Windows, and Linux and a CLI for macOS, Windows, and Linux on AMD or ARM. Port forwarding depends on an IDE or SSH session.