AWS today launched a new browser-based IDE, AWS Cloud9, at its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. Cloud9 is actually an IDE the company acquired last year. It’s based on the Ace Editor and the work Cloud9 did on its c9.io IDE.
When we first reported that AWS had acquired Cloud9, the company wouldn’t confirm this deal. We now have this confirmation.
Cloud9 isn’t all that different from similar IDEs and editors like Sublime Text, but as AWS stressed during today’s keynote, it allows for collaborative editing and it’s also deeply integrated into the AWS ecosystem. The tool comes with built-in support for languages like JavaScript, Python, PHP and others. Cloud9 also includes pre-installed debugging tools.
AWS argues that this is the first “cloud native” IDE, though I’m sure some of its competitors will take issue with this description. Either way, though, Cloud9 is deeply integrated with AWS and developers can create cloud environments and start new instances right from the tool. As AWS CTO Werner Vogels stressed, Cloud9 also lets you debug Lambda functions for those developers who have gone all-in on serverless.
For developers, this direct integration with AWS’s line-up of services will likely be the main selling point of Cloud9. AWS competitors like Microsoft and Google, after all, also offer their own IDEs for cloud and mobile developers for exactly this reason (though Visual Studio, for example, also offers plenty of integrations with third-party services).
