When comparing Eclipse Che vs GitHub Codespaces, the Slant community recommends Eclipse Che for most people. In the question“What are the best cloud IDEs?” Eclipse Che is ranked 8th while GitHub Codespaces is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Eclipse Che is:
Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to your running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so you can use a desktop IDE is handy.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro SSH + terminal
Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to your running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so you can use a desktop IDE is handy.
Pro Custom commands
You can package up custom commands with your workspace and then use them (or share them) with everyone else.
Pro Docker runtimes
You can choose from pre-configured environments for Java, Javascript, C++, PHP, C#, etc., or you can define your own by dropping in a Dockerfile - makes it easy for simple and complex projects.
Pro GIT and SVN VCS support
Projects can be easily imported from any Git or Svn repository hosting service.
Pro Reproducible environment
Pro Portable workspaces
The workspace in Che includes project sources, IDE and the runtime. So if you hand your Che workspace definition to another user and they execute it they will get everything they need to build, run and debug the project.
Also the runtime is in a Docker container so it will work even if the second user is on a different OS than the original user who shared their workspace with them.
Pro Previews
Che does a nice job to automatically map the service:port running in the Docker container (e.g. tomcat on 8080) to the Docker port it actually uses (something in the ephemeral range). You never need to figure that out - it's just made available when you run your server.
Pro Merge tool for VCS
Pro Open-source
Pro Preferences are synced
Your Visual Studio local preferences and extensions are saved within GitHub, allowing you to use your configurations on the go.
Pro One-click experience
Designed to make contributing to a repository easier, all it takes to start the cloud IDE is its dedicated button within the repository page.
Pro Visual Studio Codespaces extensions works as-is
If you are a customer for Visual Studio Codespaces, your extension to control GitHub Codespaces will also work and you will be able to use your Visual Studio Code to interact to the Codespace instead of using the Web IDE if need be.
Pro Extensible and configurable
Borrowing from its bigger sister, Visual Studio Codespaces, which is also based on Visual Studio Code, any VS Code extensions work outside the box, no gotchas.
Pro Customizable environments
Environments can be customized in the user-level or the repository using a container declaration file, allowing the environments to be tailored according to the user and the target project
Cons
Con Slow runtime
Online IDE is much slower than desktop one.
Con Limited to GitHub
As this is a GitHub Product, do not expect it to work with the likes of GitLab or BitBucket. If you want to use third party VCS providers, you might want to use Visual Studio Codespaces instead.
Con Limited to 5 Codespaces instances
GitHub Codespaces currently limits you to 5 concurrent working codespaces. You have to delete another to start another codespace.
Con Early-Access Software
Currently invite-only, expect GitHub Codespaces to have some bugs until its GA release.