What would be the best free online IDE to build your own full-stack project? Ive used Replit while learning with FCC, but i was wondering if there are other alternatives that can surpass it?
PS: I want to have both front-end and server side/database interaction. Im aware for DB, id need an external source most likely
I am specifically looking for online platform, one that wont rely heavily, or at all, on my pc OS, so i can access it from anywhere. I am not expecting a professional volume and support. I was hoping to hear real opinions by others. I did check some articles which rate different platforms, but those posts dont sound genuine
“best” can be relative to a few factors.
Replit’s main thing going for it is its not only an online IDE, but also a “hosting platform”. This makes it easily the best to use if you just want to get something up and running quickly. But it’s very limiting if you need specific requirements the hosting platform, and built-in API’s can’t handle.
Other more powerful online IDE’s wont handle the actual hosting/serving of your code. They will focus on the IDE aspect, and thus be more akin to VSCode you’d run locally, leaving you to deploy/host using more dedicated services.
There aren’t too many options, but I’ll list the few I’ve kept an eye on over the years. The following might have some issues here and there so do your own back-up research, but I tried to mention the key points for each:
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https://glitch.com/ - glitch is an online IDE with a similar feature set as replit. It provides the basic feature set for free, otherwise your looking at 8$ a month. This used to be directly recommended by freeCodeCamp, but recently stopped due to instabilities with the platform resulting in multi-hour outages too often.
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https://www.gitpod.io/ - gitpod is a VSCode based online IDE that provides a generous free tier (50 hours a month) and direct github (and gitlab?) integration. It also supports a “self-host” mode so you could setup your own stuff and pay gitpod nothing.
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https://codeanywhere.com/ - codeanywhere is a VSCode based online IDE that provides a short free trial period, then is roughly 6$ for the base tier. It’s similar to gitpod in many ways, but due to the lack of free tier I’m unsure much about it. Last I checked it wasn’t even VSCode based so my knowledge about is very limited.
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GitHub Codespaces · GitHub - codespaces is a github feature that runs on VSCode that directly integrates with desktop VSCode github and other Microsoft integrations. (big tech for the win!) It has a “pay as you go” model for organizations. Meaning you can’t currently just run it directly yourself. I’m somewhat biased as I can run it for personal projects due to getting into the beta, but this will probably go away soon.
There are a few others, such as “cloud9” which was bought by amazon, no longer free and renamed (no idea what its named now) or something like code-server which is essentially the open source version of VSCode “on the web”, but you host and run it yourself. But I consider this much more work and could cost more overall.
Personally I’d stick to gitpod due to its free tier, or replit due to its uniqueness as an IDE and hosting platform.
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I was going to suggest Gitpod as well. It’s pretty good for working with repos directly.
There is also CodeSandbox and StackBlitz. You can probably set up a monorepo to have both backend and frontend code in the same project. Or pick a full-stack framework like Next/Remix/SvelteKit/Nuxt to have it all in one place.
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Stackblitz is somewhat of the “experimental horse” out of all of these options. They do crazy things to make stackblitz stand out.
For starters, unlike all the other options mentioned stackblitz works 100% in your browser. This is both a pro and a con. It’s a pro because it’s cheap to run infrastructure wise for them, so it’s can provide an “unlimited” free tier.
The con is that because of the way it works it’s very possible what you’re doing might not actually work due to the nature of the runtime. (web container based nodejs support)
So take any project with stackblitz with a grain of salt that you’re working within a very “experimental” sort of environment. If it works, it’s awesome.
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Thanks for the generous answers, this is exactly the info i was looking for. I might give Gitpod a go and if it doesnt suit me, ill stick with Replit.
As a follow up question, what would be the best(i know best is very ambigious, but give me your recommendations!) tech to pick, to make full stack working, meaning focus on front-end, a server and a db relation. The technologies i want to use are react(as i have exp with it) and typescript. I have some experience with ruby on rails, but im more willing to use something js based for the backend. Ive also completed the fcc courses with express/Node & related packages, but i hear this next js is solid full stack option. I also recall mongoose as something im willing to try anew, having more experience working with promices/async stuff.
PS: Recalling mongoose was using mongodb, what would be a counterpart package which is assisting with a relational db queries?
For React, I would definitely suggest you check out Next.js and maybe give Remix.run a look as well.
Prisma is pretty nice. It even now works with MongoDB as well.
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