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# About Coder
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Coder is an open-source platform for creating and managing developer workspaces
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on your preferred clouds and servers.
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By building on top of common development interfaces (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.
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If you are a Coder v1 customer, view < a href = "https://coder.com/docs/coder" > the docs< / a > or < a href = "https://coder.com/docs/coder/latest/guides/v2-faq" > the sunset plans< / a > .
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## How it works
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Coder workspaces are represented with Terraform, but no Terraform knowledge is
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required to get started. We have a database of pre-made templates built into the
product.
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Coder workspaces don't stop at compute. You can add storage buckets, secrets, sidecars
and whatever else Terraform lets you dream up.
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[Learn more about managing infrastructure. ](./templates/index.md )
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## IDE Support
You can use any Web IDE ([code-server](https://github.com/coder/code-server), [projector ](https://github.com/JetBrains/projector-server ), [Jupyter ](https://jupyter.org/ ), etc.), [JetBrains Gateway ](https://www.jetbrains.com/remote-development/gateway/ ), [VS Code Remote ](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh-tutorial ) or even a file sync such as [mutagen ](https://mutagen.io/ ).
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## Why remote development
Migrating from local developer machines to workspaces hosted by cloud services
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is an [increasingly common solution for
developers](https://blog.alexellis.io/the-internet-is-my-computer/) and
[organizations
alike](https://slack.engineering/development-environments-at-slack). There are
several benefits, including:
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- **Increased speed:** Server-grade compute speeds up operations in software
development, such as IDE loading, code compilation and building, and the
running of large workloads (such as those for monolith or microservice
applications)
- **Easier environment management:** Tools such as Terraform, nix, Docker,
devcontainers, and so on make developer onboarding and the troubleshooting of
development environments easier
- **Increase security:** Centralize source code and other data onto private
servers or cloud services instead of local developer machines
- **Improved compatibility:** Remote workspaces share infrastructure
configuration with other development, staging, and production environments,
reducing configuration drift
- **Improved accessibility:** Devices such as lightweight notebooks,
Chromebooks, and iPads can connect to remote workspaces via browser-based IDEs
or remote IDE extensions
## Why Coder
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The key difference between Coder OSS and other remote IDE platforms is the added
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layer of infrastructure control. This additional layer allows admins to:
- Support ARM, Windows, Linux, and macOS workspaces
- Modify pod/container specs (e.g., adding disks, managing network policies,
setting/updating environment variables)
- Use VM/dedicated workspaces, developing with Kernel features (no container
knowledge required)
- Enable persistent workspaces, which are like local machines, but faster and
hosted by a cloud service
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Coder includes [production-ready templates ](https://github.com/coder/coder/tree/c6b1daabc5a7aa67bfbb6c89966d728919ba7f80/examples/templates ) for use with AWS EC2,
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Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, and more.
## What Coder is _not_
- Coder is not an infrastructure as code (IaC) platform. Terraform is the first
IaC _provisioner_ in Coder, allowing Coder admins to define Terraform
resources as Coder workspaces.
- Coder is not a DevOps/CI platform. Coder workspaces can follow best practices
for cloud service-based workloads, but Coder is not responsible for how you
define or deploy the software you write.
- Coder is not an online IDE. Instead, Coder supports common editors, such as VS
Code, vim, and JetBrains, over HTTPS or SSH.
- Coder is not a collaboration platform. You can use git and dedicated IDE
extensions for pull requests, code reviews, and pair programming.
- Coder is not a SaaS/fully-managed offering. You must host
Coder on a cloud service (AWS, Azure, GCP) or your private data center.
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## Up next
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- Learn about [Templates ](./templates/index.md )
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- [Install Coder ](./install/index.md#install-coder )