Coder vs Dejima
Both let you run AI coding agents on hardware you control instead of someone else's cloud. The difference is who they're built for. Coder is enterprise dev-environment infrastructure for a platform team standardizing hundreds of engineers. Dejima is one command for a developer who wants a contained fleet on their own box.
Verified as of June 2026. Competitor products change quickly, so every claim here is dated and the sources are listed at the bottom of this page.
Short version: if you're a platform team that needs enterprise governance across an org, Coder is built for exactly that. If you're a solo developer or a small team who wants agents running on a Mac mini or a single server today, without standing up infrastructure first, that's Dejima.
What Coder is
Coder is an open-source platform for self-hosted cloud development environments, and as of May 2026 it also runs AI coding agents on that same infrastructure. You define a workspace with a template, and Coder provisions it as a VM or container on infrastructure you run. Developers get a consistent environment, and their agents run in the same place.
It's aimed at the enterprise; Coder's own tagline is enterprise AI development infrastructure and governance. The open-source edition covers the developer-facing features, and the governance you'd want at scale, multi-organization access control and audit logging, lands on the paid Premium tier. That's the right shape for a company rolling out standardized environments and agent access to a large team.
What Dejima is
Dejima is a self-hosted runtime for a fleet of coding agents, installed with one command. Each project runs in an island, a container with its own home and credentials, and each agent inside gets its own git worktree. You bring your own agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, others) and your own keys. See the overview.
It installs with one command that sets up Docker, the background service, and your Tailscale identity, and you're running in minutes. The things you'd pay for elsewhere, an audit log and brokered host access, are free and built in.
Side by side
| What you need | Dejima | Coder |
|---|---|---|
| One install command on a Mac mini or single box | ✓ | ✗ |
| Run terminal + headless agents, one dashboard | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audit log of agent and host-file access | ✓ | $ Premium |
| Brokered, deny-all access to host files | ✓ | ✗ |
| Org-wide access control and governance | roles + tokens | $ Premium |
| Standardize environments for hundreds of devs | ~ | ✓ |
| Fully open source, self-host free | ✓ | ✓ |
$ Premium = paid tier (contact sales). Coder's developer features are open source; audit logging and multi-organization access control are Premium.
When Coder is the better choice
Pick Coder if you're the platform team. You're handing standardized, reproducible environments to a large group of engineers, and you need org-wide access control and audit with a support contract behind it. Coder is purpose-built for that, and Dejima isn't trying to be.
When Dejima is the better choice
Pick Dejima if you're the developer, not the platform team. You want agents working on a box you own without a provisioning project first. You want each agent walled off from your machine and the others, brokered host access that's deny-all by default, and a tamper-evident audit log, without any of it being a paid add-on. And you want to bring whatever agents you like rather than adopt one vendor's.
Common questions
Is Coder or Dejima better for a solo developer?
Dejima, in most cases. Coder is built for platform teams standardizing environments across an org, with governance on a paid tier. Dejima installs with one command on a single box, with audit and brokered host access free and built in, which fits a solo developer or small team better.
Do I need Kubernetes to run Dejima?
No. Dejima installs with one command that sets up Docker, the background service, and your Tailscale identity. There's no cluster or orchestration to deploy; it runs the same on a Mac mini, a Linux server, or a cloud VM.
Is Coder's audit logging free?
No. Coder's audit logging and multi-organization access control are part of its paid Premium tier, per Coder's pricing and docs as of June 2026. Dejima's tamper-evident audit ledger and role-scoped tokens are free and built into the open-source release, with no paid tier gating governance.
Sources, last verified June 2026: Coder pricing · Coder audit logs (Premium). Competitor details change; tell us if something here is out of date.
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