Gitpod reinvents itself as Ona in pivot to AI agent platform
(2025/09/03)
- Reference: 1756915214
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/03/gitpod_rebrands_as_ona/
- Source link:
Gitpod, best known for cloud-hosted dev environments, has rebranded as Ona and is now pitching itself as an AI agent platform.
Co-founder and CEO Johannes Landgraf [1]said that "IDEs defined the last era. Agents define the next." The Ona platform is still built on remote environments, but is now integrated with Ona agents. Landgraf claimed that Ona "co-authored 60 percent of our PRs merged on main and contributed 72 percent of code merged" in the last week, from which we presume that Ona is writing more than half of its own code.
Ona runs either in the company's multi-tenant cloud, with US and Europe regions, or on an AWS VPC (virtual private cloud) for those who require more control and isolation. The remote environments run Visual Studio Code in the browser, though it is also possible to open projects in a number of IDEs running locally, including VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains IDEs, and Zed. These IDEs require the Gitpod/Ona extension.
[2]
Landgraf said that Ona's remote environments are sandboxed and ephemeral, which in his view enables "reliable, secure autonomy." Autonomy here means using agents in autonomous mode, where they are empowered to write code and perform tasks without manual approval. Running remotely reduces the risk of AI agents misbehaving on a local PC or business network, though given that Ona asks for full read/write access to GitHub repositories and workflows, for example, risks from attacks such as prompt injection remain.
Ona demands a high level of access to GitHub in order to do its agentic work
The Ona platform does include guardrails for further protection, including short-lived access to cloud resources, a command deny list, and audit logs.
A more cautious approach is to use the platform in manual mode, in which agents provide suggestions and "targeted actions," or assisted mode, in which "Ona agents propose and apply changes with full visibility."
[3]'Huge architectural change' to JetBrains ReSharper cuts Visual Studio freezes
[4]Laravel inventor tells devs to quit writing 'cathedrals of complexity'
[5]Google and Zed push protocol to pry AI agents out of VS Code's clutches
[6]Bun JS toolkit adds MySQL driver, secrets API, YAML, and more
Ona agents are capable of generating code, running commands, using formatters and linters, opening branches and pull requests, responding to review feedback, and executing long-running tasks. The LLM is Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4, though those on enterprise plans can use other LLMs.
A document by CTO Christian Weichel on [7]best practices with Ona describes how the team uses Ona internally. The most common pitfall is being insufficiently specific, he says. Another tip is that, with AI-generated code, "tests become the most crucial component to review."
[8]
Pricing is somewhat opaque, based on Ona Compute Units (OCUs). The Core plan provides at least 80 OCUs per month with an option to purchase more, from $10.00 for 40 OCUs. The [9]docs unhelpfully state that for enterprise plans, OCUs represent a "different, custom unit of value."
What is an OCU? These units cover both the cost of a remote environment and agent usage. Creating a new web app from scratch, for example, might cost 4 OCUs, while adding a new feature to a medium-size project might cost 8 OCUs. That said, the docs state that there is a "large variability in the number of OCUs consumed for each task," so bill shock is possible.
[10]
Traditional Gitpod remote environments remain available, with a migration path to Ona. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://ona.com/stories/gitpod-is-now-ona
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/03/jetbrains_resharper_update/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/01/laravel_inventor_clever_devs/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/google_zed_acp/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/27/bun_js_toolkit_adds_mysql/
[7] https://ona.com/stories/ona-best-practices
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://ona.com/pricing
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Co-founder and CEO Johannes Landgraf [1]said that "IDEs defined the last era. Agents define the next." The Ona platform is still built on remote environments, but is now integrated with Ona agents. Landgraf claimed that Ona "co-authored 60 percent of our PRs merged on main and contributed 72 percent of code merged" in the last week, from which we presume that Ona is writing more than half of its own code.
Ona runs either in the company's multi-tenant cloud, with US and Europe regions, or on an AWS VPC (virtual private cloud) for those who require more control and isolation. The remote environments run Visual Studio Code in the browser, though it is also possible to open projects in a number of IDEs running locally, including VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains IDEs, and Zed. These IDEs require the Gitpod/Ona extension.
[2]
Landgraf said that Ona's remote environments are sandboxed and ephemeral, which in his view enables "reliable, secure autonomy." Autonomy here means using agents in autonomous mode, where they are empowered to write code and perform tasks without manual approval. Running remotely reduces the risk of AI agents misbehaving on a local PC or business network, though given that Ona asks for full read/write access to GitHub repositories and workflows, for example, risks from attacks such as prompt injection remain.
Ona demands a high level of access to GitHub in order to do its agentic work
The Ona platform does include guardrails for further protection, including short-lived access to cloud resources, a command deny list, and audit logs.
A more cautious approach is to use the platform in manual mode, in which agents provide suggestions and "targeted actions," or assisted mode, in which "Ona agents propose and apply changes with full visibility."
[3]'Huge architectural change' to JetBrains ReSharper cuts Visual Studio freezes
[4]Laravel inventor tells devs to quit writing 'cathedrals of complexity'
[5]Google and Zed push protocol to pry AI agents out of VS Code's clutches
[6]Bun JS toolkit adds MySQL driver, secrets API, YAML, and more
Ona agents are capable of generating code, running commands, using formatters and linters, opening branches and pull requests, responding to review feedback, and executing long-running tasks. The LLM is Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4, though those on enterprise plans can use other LLMs.
A document by CTO Christian Weichel on [7]best practices with Ona describes how the team uses Ona internally. The most common pitfall is being insufficiently specific, he says. Another tip is that, with AI-generated code, "tests become the most crucial component to review."
[8]
Pricing is somewhat opaque, based on Ona Compute Units (OCUs). The Core plan provides at least 80 OCUs per month with an option to purchase more, from $10.00 for 40 OCUs. The [9]docs unhelpfully state that for enterprise plans, OCUs represent a "different, custom unit of value."
What is an OCU? These units cover both the cost of a remote environment and agent usage. Creating a new web app from scratch, for example, might cost 4 OCUs, while adding a new feature to a medium-size project might cost 8 OCUs. That said, the docs state that there is a "large variability in the number of OCUs consumed for each task," so bill shock is possible.
[10]
Traditional Gitpod remote environments remain available, with a migration path to Ona. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://ona.com/stories/gitpod-is-now-ona
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/03/jetbrains_resharper_update/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/01/laravel_inventor_clever_devs/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/google_zed_acp/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/27/bun_js_toolkit_adds_mysql/
[7] https://ona.com/stories/ona-best-practices
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://ona.com/pricing
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aLi6dXe0vgfYniR_C-Fr-AAAAA4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Anonymous Coward
The article refers to the availability of "autonomous mode" and "manual mode", so perhaps it's intentional.
So gitpod users will be known as onanists?
Did nobody think about checking that word?