What are the best cloud IDEs for JavaScript?

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Aug 30, 2021

Last
Updated

AWS Cloud 9 vs Koding vs SourceLair

vs Codeanywhere vs goormIDE vs PaizaCloud IDE vs Devello Studio vs Gitpod.io vs Facebook

Specs

Git

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

Yes

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Cross Platform

Yes

Bracket Matching

Yes

Source Control Integration

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

yes

Multi Language Support

yes

Auto Complete

yes

Integrated Debugger

yes

Cross Platform

yes

Bracket Matching

yes

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Yes

Snippets

yes

Private Coding

paid

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

yes

Multi Language Support

yes (over 12)

Auto Complete

yes

Integrated Debugger

yes

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

yes

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

yes

Platforms

Browser-Based

Free tier

yes

SVN

yes

Collaborative editing

yes

Real-time collaboration

yes

Unit Testing

yes

Container share

yes

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

Yes

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Yes

Bracket Matching

Yes

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Yes

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Yes

Floating window mode

Yes

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

Yes

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

JSHint

Error Markup

Yes

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Free

Release Date

July 2020

Preview

Yes

Publish to Public URL

Yes

FTP/SFTP

FTP import/export

Github

Import from/commit to Git

Git

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Git

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Bracket Matching

Source Control Integration

Error Markup

Code Templates

Snippets

Private Coding

Root access

Platforms

Free tier

SVN

Collaborative editing

Real-time collaboration

Unit Testing

Container share

No credit card

Floating window mode

Price

Release Date

Preview

Publish to Public URL

FTP/SFTP

Github

Pros + Cons

Pro
Offline editing

By installing and running a client application that syncs the local file system and cloud storage Cloud9 can be run locally. Great alternative for situations when the Internet connection is unreliable.

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Pro
Capable editor

Cloud9 uses their own editor called ACE. Besides the basics, it covers most important advanced code editor features such as code folding, converting cases, auto-completion, code analysis and refactoring, regex search and offers easy access to relevant documentation. It also gives access to the CLI, has support for Vim and Emacs keybindings, includes multiple cursors and zen coding mode that removes all distractions and allows focusing on code.

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Pro
Full terminal access

Cloud9 gives full terminal access to home directory. In their hosted Linux Ubuntu environment it has sudo powers. No UNIX commands have been blocked - npm, ifconfig, chmod, chown, tar, etc work. All commands can be accessed and any package can be installed. And if the terminal is used when using Remote SSH feature it connects directly to the server and runs the commands on that server.

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Pro
Can be hosted on own server

Since Cloud9 is an open source project with source code available on GitHub, it can be run as a self-hosted solution on own hardware and behind a firewall.

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Pro
Geared towards collaboration

An important feature of Cloud9 is the real-time collaboration ability. It allows pairing programs or perform code reviews really easily as well as simultaneously text chat.

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Pro
Git & Mercurial support

Git and hg commands can be run in the command-line, the same way as in a local terminal. There are also built-in add-on services for GitHub, BitBucket and GitLab.

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Pro
Hotkey presets to match popular desktop editors

Whatever input style you're familiar with, good chance that knot style works mostly well on C9

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Pro
Debugging with breakpoints for NodeJS server side JavaScript

Breakpoints allow specifying a stopping points in the execution of the application. When these breakpoints are hit, the application will stop executing and give the ability to examine data such as local variables, run commands and control the execution flow of the application.

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Pro
Full development environment, including local Database

A C9 project is not just the code, but a VM giving developers nearly unrestricted access to local services and processing.

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Pro
Provides a simple way to deploy apps

Cloud9 allows quickly deploying apps via CLI. There are instructions on how to deploy to Azure, CloudFoundry, OpenShift, NodeJitsu, Modulus and Heroku. For example, all hosted environments have Heroku's toolbelt installed by default so all heroku commands are available from the get-go.

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Pro
Package manager

Similar to package managers for the desktop, Cloud9 also includes their own package manager, c9pm, which allows adding new software from a list of available utilities. Apt-get can be used in the project's workspace terminal to install/update/upgrade software. Composer, Bower or any other utilities of choice can be installed to manage dependencies and packages.

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Con
Lacks subdomain options

Building an app that needs subdomains is impossible.

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Con
The self-hosted version is hard to set up

The self-hosted open source version does not come pre-configured and it does not work out of the box. Setting it up on a local server is rather hard.

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Con
Lots of features leave this IDE heavy weight

Performance of the VM and the IDE/GUI to that VM are mostly solid, but don't expect the performance of a desktop IDE on bare metal. Regex find replace is a pain point, as are large files and many hotkey operations on large files.

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Con
Poor copy to clipboard support (due to browser restrictions)

Attempting to copy text from ide to system clipboard will make a modal pop-up which must then be selected and copied again. Paste should work fine.

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Con
Very little specs on free plan

Only 512MB ram and 3GB disk.

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Pro
Free VM with root

Anyone can get a free virtual machine (VM) with Ubuntu that has root access, apt-get, and many commonly used web tools. (most services offer this) The virtual machine shuts down after the user has been logged out for 60 minutes, but the state is preserved. Pro plans get an always-on VM.

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Pro
Built-in package manager

The Koding Package Manager (a successor to Apps) is a command line tool for installing packages like nginx, Redis, VNC, Wordpress and many others. It consists of officially supported and user-built packages.

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Con
Poor uptime

Server are regularly either down for maintenance or generally available, because they're used by all other users.

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Con
Bad performance and latency issues

Koding IDE can be uncomfortably unresponsive at times even when taken into consideration that it's a cloud-based IDE.

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Pro
Capable editor

Koding uses the Ace editor that's developed by Cloud9. Besides the basics, it covers most important advanced code editor features such as code folding, converting cases, auto-completion, code analysis and refactoring, regex search and offers easy access to relevant documentation. It also gives access to the CLI, has support for Vim and Emacs keybindings, includes multiple cursors and zen coding mode that removes all distractions and allows focusing on code.

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Pro
Powerful JavaScript auto-complete

Provides both file-wide and cross-package auto complete among JavaScript files (supports also require.js and CommonJS modules) in both browser and Node, function documentation fetching, function argument hinting.

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Pro
Heroku integration for JavaScript projects

Streamlined deployment setup and Heroku-compatible runtime for Node.js based web applications.

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Pro
Customizable, real-time error reporting

Customizing the error reporting of your project in SourceLair can happen through the ".jshintrc" file in the root directory of the project

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Pro
GitHub integration

Clone your repositories from GitHub with a single click

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Pro
React and JSX supoprt

SourceLair supports developing React applications using JSX, out of the box.

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Pro
Node.js support

Out of the box development of Node.js web applications.

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Pro
HTTPS public URLs

All public URLs for web projects in SourceLair are HTTPS enabled.

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Pro
Bower integration

Bower integrates into SourceLair's Command Palette

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Pro
Npm integration

SourceLair integrates with npm, parses the package.json file and populates it to the Command Palette

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Con
Very unstable

It's a nice IDE when it works, but suffers a lot from instability with things like being unable to save files, or not starting up, as well as crashes, etc.

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Pro
Integration with DigitalOcean

CodeAnywhere recently partnered up with DigitalOcean. Now users can manage, spin up and provision DigitalOcean droplets all from the CodeAnywhere IDE. This is a great addition for both products, combining the power of an affordable host with the portability and power of CodeAnywhere IDE.

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Pro
Multiple devboxes

DevBoxes are saveable, fully customizable development environments that run on either Open VZ or Docker and each has a dedicated amount of memory and disk space. Multiple devboxes can be run at the same time.

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Pro
Good editor

Supports multiple cursors. Has code completion for JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS and linting for JavaScript and CSS.

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Pro
SFTP access

Allows connecting code via FTP, SFTP.

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Pro
Full terminal access

CodeAnywhere gives users full terminal access.

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Pro
Github integration

Integrates with Github and allows logging in with your Github account.

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Pro
Unlimited revisions

Each action performed on any file from any resource will be saved forever.

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Pro
Dropbox and Google Drive support

Codeanywhere allows connecting to a Dropbox or a Google Drive account and pull development files from there making it easy to sync development files across devices.

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Pro
Allows inviting collaborators with a link

Codeanywhere has a feature called Share Links, that allows users to collaborate with others on their projects in real-time by simply sharing a link to their work.

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Pro
Has mobile apps for all major mobile OSs

Codeanywhere has apps for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows and Blackberry.

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Con
SSH Port will be different each time you start your DevBox

Only for Always on DevBoxes will SSH ports remain static.

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Con
Web editor on iPad is severely lacking

Codeanywhere relies on right click for major actions but doesn't support this interaction on iPad. Selecting listed Dev box URLs to access site is also unworkable in practice. iPad app allows the actions but has very limited set of Dev box controls.

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Pro
BitBucket Integration

Integrates with BitBucket and allows logging in with your BitBucket account. It's possible to launch Codeanywhere from within BitBucket's repo by adding Codeanywhere integration as an add-on.

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Pro
Super easy

No more configurations, just a few clicks. It's fully ready to develop.

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Con
Server will stop when switching to a new browser tab

Makes it very difficult to search for solutions and remain in the flow. After notifying support about the issue more than once, the first time, they offer a generic solution which does not work, after that, the responses stop.

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Pro
Root access to shell

Goorm allows the user to access their shell as the root user, and SSH is also supported.

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Pro
Supports most languages and frameworks

Goorm IDE has support for C, C++, Java, Js, python, ruby, node express, jquery, angular, and bootstrap. It even supports web server and integrated debuggger.

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Pro
Cloud IDE

Goorm IDE is a cloud IDE, making it easy to sign into and code from anywhere.

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Con
English is not the primary language

If you do a google search for Goorm IDE, much of the results are in Korean, which is the same with their social media. If you don't speak Korean, you may have difficulty finding more information on Goorm or asking for help/support.

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Con
Server will stop when I switch to a new browser tab.

Makes it very difficult to search for solutions and remain in the flow. I notified support about the issue more than once. The first time, they offered a generic solution which did not work. After that, I received no response.

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Con
Server will stop when I switch to a new browser tab.

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Pro
HTTP/HTTPS access to any ports

PaizaCloud allow you to access almost all ports for HTTP/HTTPs access.

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Pro
Supports Jupyter notebook

PaizaCloud has Jupyter Notebook support with Python libraries like NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, or matplotlib built-in.

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Pro
Terminal with root

In PaizaCloud, you can sudo to root. So, you can install packages, or run service freely.

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Pro
Google Home / Google Assistant development in the browser

As PaizaCloud runs in the cloud, you can develop and run the Google Home / Google Assistant application, without deploying to another server.

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Pro
No credit card required

No credit card is required for FREE plan.

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Pro
Extensible PaizaCloud app

PaizaCloud provides standard application like File manager, Editor, Terminal. But, PaizaCloud also provides the possibility to add or even create new App-for-PaizaCloud using HTML/CSS.

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Pro
Internationalization

PaizaCloud's Editor or Terminal fully support non-ASCII languages like Japanese, Chinese, European languages.

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Pro
Floating window manager

PaizaCloud provides Floating window manager like Windows or Mac by default. It makes the environment more flexible. PaizaCloud also provides Tab window mode when you want to use the full screen for one purpose.

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Pro
3 seconds instant launch

PaizaCloud launches new development environment server just in 3 seconds. So, you can casually create or destroy server.

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Pro
Complete dev environment in one tab

Just prefix any GitHub URL with gitpod.io# and you can review a code immediately.

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