When comparing Codiad vs Google Cloud Shell, the Slant community recommends Google Cloud Shell for most people. In the question“What are the best cloud IDEs?” Google Cloud Shell is ranked 10th while Codiad is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose Google Cloud Shell is:
Google Cloud Shell is free for Google Cloud Platform customers.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open source
You can run Codiad on your server to allow you and your team to edit files.
Simplest to run may be using a Docker image like linuxserver/codiad.
Pro Easy to self-host: Only requires PHP
It only requires PHP 5+ and Nginx or Apache. No database is required. This makes it really easy to install on many servers include shared hosting.
Pro Multi-line edit
Allows to edit multiple things are once by having multiple cursors like Sublime Text.
Pro Has many easily installable plugins
Many plugins exist, from Terminal, Git to Collaboration and Emmet... Plugins can be installed by using the web interface, or by manually extracting files to the right directory.
Pro Simple and easily managable GUI
Pro Inexpensive
Google Cloud Shell is free for Google Cloud Platform customers.
Pro Already has Google Cloud SDK and other tooling installed
Thus eliminating a setup step for interacting with Google Cloud.
Pro Already provisioned with Google Application Default Credentials
This makes it easier to run/test code that interacts with Google APIs.
Pro VM is always up-to-date, making it more secure
Because the VM image is managed by Google and either provided entirely by Google or configured by a Dockerfile (which is regularly rebuilt), packages are far more likely to be kept up-to-date with the last patches and security fixes compared with Cloud IDEs that give you your own VM and make you, yourself, in charge of applying updates.
Pro Supports multiple open files at the same time
One can split the screen and edit two files at once, making it easy to edit one file while consulting the contents of some other file.
Pro Supports editor and terminal in the same screen
This makes it easy to run commands while editing files at the same time.
Pro Built-in integration with tmux
Pro Supports "Boost Mode"
Allowing you to provision a more powerful instance when necessary.
Pro Supports custom software packages via a Dockerfile configuring the Cloud Shell image
With Cloud Shell custom environments (an early access feature), it is possible to specify a "Dockerfile" to specify a custom VM image to use for the Cloud Shell environment. This Dockerfile can be used to install packages with apt-get, npm, pip, etc. globally.
Pro Includes Eclipse Orion IDE already configured
Eclipse Orion can be difficult to setup/configure if creating a do-it-yourself VM running Eclipse. This makes it easier to have a working IDE.
Cons
Con Terminal runs as same user for everyone
No matter who is the logged in user, the Terminal plugin runs commands as the PHP user. This also affects the Git plugin in that there is a single SSH key for all users using your Codiad instance.
Con Full of small bugs
There are plenty of various issues and bug that may either be due to your setup and the UI will not report them, or due to bugs in the code; I'm including common plugins here as well (just naming a few: search files and in files may report nothing if it had an error, commands stderr not printed, marketplace not showing items, search in market place showing no results, Git escaping (
by \(
in the commit message for no good reason...). Those are generally small but together it makes the product feel flawed.
Con Currently no search and replace in multiple files
There is a search in multiple files, and search & replace in current file, but not something to perform a search & replace in multiple files.
Con Terminal doesn't TTY
The terminal plugin for Codiad allows users to type some commands and see the outputs, but not interactive input is supported (i.e. stdin is closed). Meaning you cannot run Vim, Tmux or anything requiring user inputs.
Con Demo only lasts 30min
Con Ephemeral Disk
Software installed globally as root (such as via "sudo apt-get install..." ) can be lost when restarting Cloud Shell; any software that needs to be persistent has to be installed in the user directory (or made part of the Docker image for the custom Cloud Shell image).
Con Minimal UI
Cloud Shell's editor is not as featureful as some alternatives.
