I'm building an alternative to Azure Dev Box targeted at contractors, solo devs, and bootstrapped startups.
It's hosted in the UK/EU — no US CLOUD Act.
I actually launched it on HN a week ago but I messed up by gatekeeping the signups behind an Early Access Code and of course, all I heard was crickets! You live and learn. Now it's just signup and pay (via Stripe) and your workstation is ready in less than 10 minutes.
No subs, no contracts, no need for E3/E5 licenses, just a raw workstation starting at £12 for 8 hours or £25 for 24 hours.
Each machine has a bunch of stuff already installed and configured, such as VS 2026, VS Code, Git, Docker etc. Zero bloat or AI or Copilot or anything like that: I spent ages creating the custom image.
I've restricted the number of concurrent machines for now so I can iron out any bugs and manage cloud costs.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the performance, the pricing model, and the UX!
Ta
Mick (Founder)