I’m running into a serious conflict on Windows and need a clear answer on what your local dev setup actually requires at a system level.
The problem: Claude Desktop (Anthropic’s app, used for Claude Code) has a documented, unfixed bug where it spins up a Hyper-V virtual machine in the background. Chrome freezes repeatedly throughout the day as a result, sometimes multiple times per day, with no clear trigger and no elevated CPU or memory usage visible in Task Manager at the time it happens. It’s not a crash, the browser becomes fully unresponsive for a period and then recovers. This only occurs when Windows’ VirtualMachinePlatform feature is enabled. Restarting the Hyper-V Host Compute Service temporarily clears it, but it recurs. When I disable VirtualMachinePlatform entirely, the freezing stops completely, but Docker Desktop and DevKinsta both stop working, since DevKinsta depends on Docker Desktop as a core requirement.
So right now I’m stuck choosing between: a working local WordPress dev environment via DevKinsta, or a machine that doesn’t randomly freeze for minutes at a time, with no way to have both.
My question: is there a way to use Claude Code with a Kinsta local or remote dev environment that doesn’t route through DevKinsta/Docker at all, for example, using Git for Windows alone to connect Claude Code directly to a Kinsta environment without touching Hyper-V or VirtualMachinePlatform? Or is Docker/Hyper-V a hard requirement no matter what, if I want any kind of local Kinsta dev connection?
If there’s a supported path that avoids Windows virtualization features entirely, I’d appreciate a pointer to the specific setup docs for it.
I understand your frustration, and I appreciate you reaching out about your setup. Unfortunately, our DevKinsta local deployment tool does require virtualization technologies, specifically Hyper-V or WSL2, to function properly. For more information, you can refer to our guide here: Troubleshooting - Windows Issues - Kinsta® Docs.
At this time, we are not aware of any alternative solutions that would allow you to bypass these requirements. However, your feedback is valuable, and if any significant developments occur in the future that would enable us to avoid using Hyper-V or WSL2, we will be sure to announce it here. Thank you for your understanding!
Thanks Adrian, I really appreciate it. Having said that, I am remarkably disappointed Kinsta would launch and promote such a profoundly flawed product. We’ve lost nearly a day of dev time trying to deal with this only to discover after going through more threads that it’s been going on so long it’s really moved from being more than just a bug, but an acceptable minimum viable product thredhold.
We have been moving more toward local dev to use with Claude Code but it’s clear Kinsta has no plans to resolve these issues any time soon so while we are otherwise very happy with the platform, this is serious enough we will need to begin looking at other providers that have legitimately stable local dev capabilities that don’t trigger all of these issues.
If there’s a serious timeline to resolve these problems, I would be grateful to know. Likewise, if this isn’t important enough for Kinsta to have a formal timeline, I’d appreciate knowing that as well since it will help guide our decisions.
Thank you for your reply. I understand the frustration and impact the issue you are experiencing has on your local development capabilities. I understand it’s important to find a solution to the performance problem you’re seeing.
Based on your description, the freezing doesn’t actually appear to be coming from DevKinsta. An issue with a background Hyper-V VM spawning on launch created by the Claude Desktop application appears to be the cause of that performance issue. As you have mentioned, I do see this documented on their Github issue tracker.
DevKinsta is affected because it requires Docker, and Docker requires WSL2 or Hyper-V. So to answer your original question directly: there is no DevKinsta setup on Windows that avoids virtualization, and Git for Windows alone cannot replace the NGINX, PHP, and MySQL services DevKinsta provides.
Something you may want to consider is using Claude Code CLI.
Claude Code CLI allows you to run it as a native Windows setup which appears to not have a WSL requirements. This is separate from Claude Desktop. This may allow you to run Claude Code in a way that doesn’t spawn the Hyper-V VM.
Running Claude Code from the terminal instead of the Desktop app may allow you to leave the Virtual Machine Platform enabled for DevKinsta. You may then try disabling Claude Desktop’s auto-start to help confirm if this prevents that problematic Hyper-V VM from being started.
On the timeline question, I am not able to share roadmap specifics at the moment. What I can say is that the virtualization requirement is inherent to Docker on Windows rather than something a DevKinsta patch could remove, and the performance issue appears to be coming from a third party application. Your feedback has been passed to our product team, and I would encourage reaching out to Anthropic about this issue as well so that performance issue may get more priority on their end to resolve.
If you do have any questions please don’t hesitate to reply. We are happy to help!
Unfortunately that’s a dead end, Claude Code can’t connect without using Hyper-V, which is the source of the conflict.
And yes, Claude Code’s issues are a major pain point in all of this as well but when we disconnected everything from KinstaDev, removed Docker, and just used Local, all the issues went away. It’s tough to miss the connection.
And FWIW, Claude Code CLI is another dead end. Claude Code and Cowork are both deactivated.
I can certainly understand your point of view. The DevKinsta virtualization requirements does make a setup using it while this Claude issue is present difficult. I understand that Local is working for you. I do see that it appears Local doesn’t require virtualization and runs it’s components as native Windows applications. This explains why that local development environment works for you.
With our platform, you are free to use whatever local development platform you would like. Local appears to just directly save the files and database in a way that would allow you to upload them to Kinsta via SSH. You may also use Git to help with versioning and setup a workflow for deployment.
We do have a few help articles you may find at the links below that explain how to connect to your site via SSH and how to setup Git:
Please let us know if this works for you, of if you have any questions.
From my understanding, Git for Windows alone isn’t enough for the local development environment. Most setups rely on WSL2 or Hyper-V because they provide the Linux environment required by the tooling. If your workflow is Windows-only, I’d recommend checking the official setup guide to confirm the requirements.