100,000 Stars and Counting: Celebrating Coder’s Community and Commitment to Open Source

We recently hit an incredible milestone: 100,000 GitHub stars across all Coder projects. This moment is more than just a number. It’s a celebration of the developers, contributors, and community members who’ve helped shape the future of cloud-based development.

From day one, our mission at Coder has been clear: empower developers with secure, consistent, and flexible cloud development environments. Reaching this milestone reinforces that the open source community believes in that vision too.

Open source at the heart of Coder

We launched the Coder Community Edition to give developers full access to Coder on their own terms, with no license keys, no trial subscriptions, and no sales hoops. From the start, it was open source and fully self hosted, designed to let developers deploy, inspect, and customize every part of the platform.

Coder’s core codebase is written in Go, and every CLI, UI, and backend component is open and extensible. Developers can audit the code, report bugs, suggest features, and contribute improvements in the open.

Since then, thousands of developers from indie builders to large teams have adopted Coder and become part of the movement. We now maintain more than 100 public repositories, from prebuilt templates to automation tools. At the center is code-server, which brings VS Code to the browser and powers development environments around the world.

And our community is not just along for the ride. They are actively shaping the platform. Contributors like Olivier Benz (benz0li) have played a key role in maintaining code-server’s compatibility with upstream VS Code releases, pushing dozens of updates to keep it current. Others, like Jonathan Yu (jawnsy), have improved CI workflows, build tooling, and version handling, while Sandro Jaeskel (SuperSandro2000) has helped optimize Docker images and streamline container usage.

These are just a few of the many developers helping drive Coder forward in ways both visible and behind the scenes, shaping a platform that belongs to all of us. Open source is not just how we build. It is who we are.

Join the Coder community

Coder is powered by people and there is a place here for every kind of contributor. Whether you are a seasoned engineer, an open source enthusiast, or someone just getting started, your input matters. From sharing feedback and feature ideas to building templates, helping others troubleshoot, or simply asking great questions, every interaction helps make Coder better.

This is not just a development tool. It is a collaborative space where builders support builders, and everyone has something to offer. Whether you want to:

• Maintain or contribute to open source projects
• Create tutorials, templates, or guides for others
• Join discussions and help answer questions
• Learn by exploring how others build their environments

We invite you to be part of it.

Here’s how to get involved

Join our Discord

Chat with other developers, get help, share feedback, and stay updated on community events and announcements.

Contribute to the Coder Registry

Build and share your own workspace templates, or explore community-contributed ones to speed up your setup.

Join GitHub Discussions

Share ideas, ask questions, and help shape the direction of our open source projects.

Attend a Coder Meetup

Meet other community members, learn from talks and demos, and connect in real life.

Whether you are here to give, learn, build, or all three, this community is yours. Help us shape what is next.

Introducing the Coder Champions Program

Coder continues to grow thanks to a passionate community that brings creativity, insight, and energy to everything we do. As we mark 100,000 GitHub stars, we want to recognize the people who make Coder more than just a product. It's a movement.

What is it?

The Coder Champions Program is the start of a broader initiative to recognize the builders, helpers, and advocates who go above and beyond. Whether they are mentoring others, building tools, sparking ideas, or simply lending a hand, these individuals make the Coder community stronger.

We are beginning with our first tier, Founding Coder Champions, which sets the stage for deeper involvement, meaningful recognition, and exciting rewards.

How to qualify

• Participate in five community Discord chats
• Star the Coder GitHub repo
• Help at least two people in the Discord #help channel

Perks of being a Founding Coder Champion

• A unique badge on Discord
• An exclusive T-shirt and sticker pack
• Invite to a private voice call with the Coder team
• Early access to our upcoming roadmap

Nominate yourself or someone you admire by dropping a 🎉 on our Discord announcement. Once you meet the criteria, you are officially in. We also want to hear your feedback and suggestions to help shape the future of the program.

Try out Coder today

We released Coder as open source because we understand that developers look for transparency, a vibrant community, and low-risk evaluation when adopting a new platform.

Whether you are just discovering Coder for the first time or coming back for a fresh look, there has never been a better moment to get hands-on.

Getting started is simple and flexible

• Clone our GitHub repository and follow the quickstart guide
• Deploy on your own infrastructure in minutes with full control and zero friction
• Use prebuilt templates or craft your own to match the exact workflows your team needs

Coder is built for developers who want speed without sacrificing security, power without giving up control, and modern workflows without vendor lock-in.

You can start exploring in under 10 minutes and make it your own in far less time than you would expect.

So go ahead. Launch your first workspace, customize it, break it, rebuild it, and see what Coder can do. Let’s keep building the future of development together.