DevContainer Setup using Podman in VSCodium

[anatol-newton]

Hi!
After using VSCodium for some time now, I wondered whether it was possible to get a DevContainer like setup ready in VSCodium. As I try to use as much OSS as possible, I wanted to stick to Podman and also not use the official closed-source DevContainer plugin.

After failing to get an error free environment ready with DevPod and a corresponding plugin (https://open-vsx.org/extension/3timeslazy/vscodium-devpodcontainers) I abandoned my plans for the moment and kept working without DevContainers (I could get into a DevPod / Container and work, but I had a ton of crashes and errors).

Does anyone have a good and portable setup?
Thanks a lot!

OS: Debian 13

[nick-walt]

Apparently, DevPod does or can install the Open VSCode Server which is designed to be run in a browser:
https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-server#openvscode-server

An article about DevPod's Open VSCode Server implementation:
https://fabiorehm.com/blog/2025/11/11/devpod-ssh-devcontainers/

I was told by a VSCodium dev that even their current latest version does not support installation of extensions in their web server implementation and that it does not have the same capability as Codespaces, which Open VSCode Server does. It is strange that VSCodium is unable to do what Open VSCode Server has achieved.

DevPod has been put on hold indefinitely by Loft and there is a DevPod fork which looks very promising as it is being continuously improved:
https://github.com/skevetter/devpod

[itxashancode]

I ran into the same wall last year trying to make DevPod + Podman + VSCodium work without the official Microsoft extension. The DevPod plugin you linked is unmaintained and will crash constantly - I gave up on it after the third segfault.

What actually works today is ditching DevPod entirely and using the openvscode-server directly with a custom task runner. Here's the setup that's been stable for me:

# Install openvscode-server
wget https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-server/releases/latest/download/openvscode-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf openvscode-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
cd openvscode-server-linux-amd64

# Run in a Podman container
podman run -d --name openvscode-server \
 -p 3000:3000 \
 -v vscode-data:/home/vscode \
 -e PASSWORD=yourpassword \
 openvscode/server:latest

[daiyam]

For web-based Docker, you also have https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/vscodium-web (use vscodium components, reh-web)