
Ask HN: Is anyone using a web IDE for most of their development work? - xhrpost
It seems like there&#x27;s a new web&#x2F;cloud IDE every month. Codenvy, Cloud9, Koding, Nitrous, Codebox, etc. Has anyone shifted their development environment to one of these successfully for a decent size project?
======
iamclovin
Co-founded Nitrous (but no longer part of it) so take my opinion for what it's
worth.

The real benefit is not in the Web IDE per se, but the fact that your dev
environment is accessible from anywhere. _That_ is the killer feature. You
don't have to setup your environment more than once if you have more than one
computer; you can work even with a Chromebook/iPad, and it's easily shareable
with your team.

The web IDE is great if you want to make quick edits (or want to collaborate
in real-time) but in most other cases, native editors have it beat.

Nitrous also provides file-sync tools which let you use your current editors
with a cloud-based dev environment [1].

[1] [http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/nitrous-
sync](http://docs.nitrous.io/v1.0/docs/nitrous-sync)

~~~
TimJRobinson
There are 3 other reasons that I use a Web IDE now (started using Cloud9 about
9 months ago)

\- When doing client work it's much easier to show clients what you're working
on at any time. Don't need to mess around with a staging server and uploading
files + DB changes etc.

\- All client projects are in their own environment with their own config /
env vars / DB. So say a client wants changes made 3 months down the line it's
super easy to get the project back in the state it was then. On a local
machine I frequently run into problems where I've updated my machine or
changed config since last working with them and it takes an hour or two just
to get the project going again.

\- When learning new languages can just create a new project of that type and
it has everything you need ready to go. Especially useful if you have a
windows machine where using NodeJS / Rails is often much more painful than it
should be.

~~~
TimJRobinson
Full disclosure: I now work for Cloud9 (wish I could edit this into the above
post but HN won't let me now). I wasn't asked to post these points and the
reason I recently applied for a job there was because I enjoyed the product so
much.

Just wanted to post about why I made the switch to an online IDE because I
only realised what a time saver it was for client work after I started using
it.

------
task_queue
No, because none of them contain the static analysis and developer tools one
comes to expect from a competent IDE.

Also coding in the browser has been a miserable experience.

~~~
filearts
On both points, that is the exact opposite of my experience doing
Node.js/Javascript/CSS/HTML in Cloud9IDE.

It is clear that the browser environment imposes some restrictions on what an
online IDE can do (restricted hotkeys, no on-machine filesystem access).
Notwithstanding that, I've come to prefer the Cloud9IDE environment over local
options and love being able to pick-up where I left off as I switch between
computers.

~~~
mmgutz
You can do that with Vim/Emacs, tmux on less than $5/mo VPS. Chrome has a
pretty good SSH terminal extension.

~~~
filearts
I only program as a hobby. Cloud9IDE and other cloud services have let me
build a site / service that is ranked in the top 9k globally (per Alexa)
without having to fuss about this sort of thing.

There are many things I _could_ do given the time and interest. Learning
everything needed to get where I am has taken lots of time that I feel is
better spent providing direct value to the product and its users vs. wondering
what the 'optimal' dev environment might look like.

------
TylerJewell
Founder of Codenvy. There are 400K projects built on Codenvy hundreds of on-
prem cloud installations. When we look through the saas project types, about
60% are Java and the rest are scripted language types. When we poll our saas
users, most of them are in teams of <10 or working as individuals (students).
Project types typically include student projects, web development projects,
open source contributions, and virtual labs (setting up a complex dev scenario
for sales, marketing or other purposes with factories).

Our on-prem customers are enterprise. So a lot of WebSphere, WebLogic, maven,
ant, node, Oracle DB, SQL Server, Postgres.

We also have about a dozen OEM customers that use Eclipse Che or its
derivatives to create new embedded or hosted IDEs. SAP is adopting Eclipse Che
at the core for building new business applications that have dev IDE built in.
IBM is doing similar work with Orion on BlueMix. WSO2 is embedding cloud IDEs
into their API management servers using Che.

We try to capture real user reviews, which always help. A lot of the cloud
IDEs are on these sites:

Chrome store:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/codenvy/lefigjbiim...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/codenvy/lefigjbiimiemfhjmibbgemkpenelmag?hl=en)

Stackshare: [http://stackshare.io/codenvy](http://stackshare.io/codenvy)

Slant: [http://www.slant.co/topics/713/viewpoints/3/~what-is-the-
bes...](http://www.slant.co/topics/713/viewpoints/3/~what-is-the-best-cloud-
ide~codenvy)

Capterra: [http://www.capterra.com/application-development-
software/spo...](http://www.capterra.com/application-development-
software/spotlight/140776/Codenvy%20Cloud%20IDE/Codenvy)

GetApp: [https://www.getapp.com/it-management-software/a/codenvy-
deve...](https://www.getapp.com/it-management-software/a/codenvy-developer-
environment-cloud/)

~~~
imaginenore
Just tried Codenvy with a trivial C++ "hello world" project, and couldn't
figure it out. When I run it, this is what I see in the console:

    
    
        [INFO] Preparing environment to run application codejam on…
        [INFO] Starting Runner @ Thu Apr 30 13:41:36 UTC 2015
        [DOCKER] Step 0 : FROM codenvy/php56_apache2
        [DOCKER]  ---> 432686a10598
        [DOCKER] Step 1 : ENV CODENVY_APP_BIND_DIR /var/www/html
        [DOCKER]  ---> Using cache
        [DOCKER]  ---> 4d541163106e
        [DOCKER] Step 2 : VOLUME /var/www/html
        [DOCKER]  ---> Using cache
        [DOCKER]  ---> d5c4065956b6
        [DOCKER] Successfully built d5c4065956b6
        [INFO] Environment preparation done. Application codejam starting up…
        [STDOUT] Starting web server: apache2.
        [STDOUT] ==> /var/log/apache2/access.log <==
        [STDOUT] 
        [STDOUT] ==> /var/log/apache2/error.log <==
        [STDOUT] [Thu Apr 30 13:41:39.272766 2015] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 500] AH00163: Apache/2.4.10 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
        [STDOUT] [Thu Apr 30 13:41:39.272825 2015] [core:notice] [pid 500] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
        [INFO] Application codejam booted and reachable.
        [STDOUT] 
        [STDOUT] ==> /var/log/apache2/access.log <==
        [STDOUT] 10.13.176.166 - - [30/Apr/2015:13:41:40 +0000] "HEAD / HTTP/1.1" 200 183 "-" "Java/1.7.0_71"
    

No program output.

~~~
TylerJewell
Sorry you ran into an issue. It looks like the machine that you grabbed to run
your project on is one that is attempting to launch an Apache server. So,
given your c++ project, you probably need another machine to launch.

If you cross-post your question at the Google group, an engineer will help you
investigate. I sure hope this wasn't the machine from the C++ sample project
-- that would be a silly mistake on our part!

[https://groups.google.com/a/codenvy.com/forum/#!forum/codenv...](https://groups.google.com/a/codenvy.com/forum/#!forum/codenvy)

Tyler

------
ponyous
I have one pretty big project on Cloud9. The main reason is that I can assist
designer whenever he needs any help.

At the beginning when everything moved around a lot it was just time-consuming
to give him instruction on how to update to newer version. We kept everything
on there and it is working pretty well for us.

I do most of development locally but sometimes when I am away and need
something quick I do it over C9.

------
vandermerwed
I built a decent sized Meteor app a while ago on Nitrous, but started running
out of memory on their free tier after a while. I recently switched to
Codeanywhere, which I'm still evaluating. My main reason for using a cloud IDE
is because I am a Windows user and I wanted to build something on the latest
version of Meteor without needing to start up a Linux VM or Vagrant box.

~~~
happyscrappy
Meteor works on Windows now.

[https://win.meteor.com/](https://win.meteor.com/)

------
ddod
I got into C9 to develop on a Chromebook but found it simple and functional
enough to use in general. I only use it with remote servers so the size of the
project doesn't really matter. It might if you want to collaborate with a
bunch of people all live editing through C9's collaboration feature, but I
haven't tested that.

The only other downside is that it requires you to install a bunch of deps and
an outdated version of Node.js on whatever remote server you connect it to. I
wish they'd make some of that optional.

------
maratd
Yup, I have Cloud9 installed locally on my own server. All my coding is done
through it. Fast, easily accessible over VPN, and complete control. Love
having multiple terminals open right up on my server in the IDE and just flip
through them using tabs.

~~~
saboot
This looks great, it could be a good tool for setting up dev environments for
student interns. Not sure how well the C++ is. Their documentation [1] doesn't
list how to install privately, nor is the pricing for private setups clear.

Could you share how you set this up, and how much it costs?

[https://docs.c9.io/v1.0/docs/picking-a-
plan](https://docs.c9.io/v1.0/docs/picking-a-plan)

~~~
pokoleo
Why would you use anything other than "standard" dev environments for student
interns?

You've probably ironed out many kinks in your dev environment, and can help
them when they run into them. You run risks at alienating your interns with
un-manageable errors.

~~~
saboot
You answered it yourself

> can help them when they run into them

I previously had a big reduction in questions regarding version control once I
setup GitLab running on our server and a simple tutorial wiki page. We also
don't have enough computers for all the interns, but have a powerful number
crunching machine. We do engineering work, some students have only used
MatLab. A webpage would be much easier to setup, and less hassle for me.

------
kieranajp
Not _most_, but I do a decent amount of development through Cloud9 on a
Chromebook. I'd intended to install Ubuntu on it, but actually because of C9
I've not needed to. It's also proven invaluable for assisting people; the
ability to spin up a fresh new C9 VM to collaboratively debug a project has
been very useful.

------
sammorrowdrums
The Pebble Web IDE is actually really pretty good! I generally don't use them,
but for Pebble it was easier, as it offers direct deployment, complication
toolchain etc.

~~~
bnzelener
I really like their UI and deploying over the web - that was like magic. But I
was having a weird issue with loading images in Pebble.JS at first. I came
back a week later and the image load worked just fine under the same
conditions. They're still in early stages, but it's an awesome platform.

------
filearts
Plunker ([http://plnkr.co](http://plnkr.co)) is a site in the top 9k globally
(per Alexa) and was developed exclusively in Cloud9IDE
([http://c9.io](http://c9.io)).

I have several computers that I use at different times and being able to
switch computers without friction has been the a major boon to productivity. I
also _love_ the IDE itself. For someone doing node.js work (in pure
javascript), the built-in tools are fantastic.

EDIT: Other relevant fact is that this is all hobby development work as I am
not a professional programmer. As such, I have never had the time or
motivation to really create a custom dev environment of my own. Cloud9IDE
gives me a great setup without any tweaking needed.

------
robertkrahn01
All coding, note taking, writing, and drawing happens in Lively Web
([http://lively-web.org](http://lively-web.org)) for me. It comes with a shell
and nodejs integration as well as a websocket-based messaging systems that
allows to integrate all sorts of different backends, e.g. Clojure
([https://cloxp.github.io](https://cloxp.github.io)).

------
LukeHoersten
FPComplete built a web IDE for Haskell development but recently decided to
open-source the backend and focus on tools instead:
[https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/2015/04/future-of-soh-
fphc](https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/2015/04/future-of-soh-fphc)

~~~
mark_l_watson
+1 The FPComplete web based Haskell web IDE is very good.

I worked at Google for a while in 2013 and they had an awesome web IDE named
Cider. I wonder if that is still in use internally at Google.

------
paxpelus
I am using cloud9 web IDE for all my projects. I am a full stack web developer
and I use it daily. I never used actively their vm feature but I connect
through ssh all my development servers on cloud9 so I can easily manage my
projects from any computer. I am very satisfied by their service and there is
no turning back now.

------
williamstein
I use the SageMathCloud mathematics-oriented web-IDE for all of my development
work. (I'm the lead developer of SageMathCloud.)

------
davydka
Been IntelliJ Idea (or Webstorm) for years now. The excellent Git integration
and diff tool is really useful

~~~
alphabetam
That's not a web ide. :-)

~~~
favadi
Maybe he thought we are talking about IDE for web development. :P

~~~
flurdy
The title is not very clear. I only knew it meant web _based_ IDEs as it
mentions Cloud9. I can see why some may think it is a question about modern
day Dreamweaver.

------
Matachines
I used Cloud9 while doing Hartl's Rails tutorial and was very impressed. Would
probably use it for my personal projects if I was on Windows.

------
stillsut
IPython notebooks run in the browser, but (usually) don't use a remote server.

This medium - html/js - is great for analysis work with lots of image-
processing/plotting/reporting, etc. but very difficult to build out a full app
in it because it lacks any of the normal IDE find and refactor tools. Also,
the .ipynb file storage format tends to obscure finding code within
directories.

------
mox1
At our office a lot of the development takes place on computers not connected
to the internet, on a separate network. I installed Codiad
([http://codiad.com/](http://codiad.com/)) on our dev server a year or so
back. Recently it has taken off and a couple other guys are using it. I've
slowly migrated from Eclipse + Remote Systems Explorer to Codiad.

Super easy to install (its all php based, very few dependencies), and for the
most part "just works".

I have codiad open in the browser and usually a PuTTy window open on the
server to test, run command line, etc.

We have Linux(Ubuntu) servers and a mix of OSX / Windows dev machines. Keeping
Eclipse working across all of them was annoying (and explaining how to setup
when a new Developer comes in). Now I just create a Codiad account, a ssh
account and let them have at it.

I went down the path of attempting an "offline install" of Cloud9, but gave up
after a while...it mostly assumes you have an active internet connection.

~~~
TimJRobinson
How long ago did you attempt to install Cloud9? It's recently been updated (~2
months ago) to the new V3 which is much easier to install and run offline
([https://github.com/c9/core](https://github.com/c9/core))

------
emidln
I work primarily in Clojure and Python. I haven't found anything that lets me
interact with project/virtualenv repls yet, let alone have reasonable
completion/documentation lookup. I use crouton from my pixel2 so I can run
spacemacs. I'd be open to suggestions.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I have used nitrous.io for some Clojure work (and Ruby and Node) and you have
as many terminal windows open on an instance as you want.

------
karn09
I've used Cloud9, Nitrous, and currently messing around with Codenvy, and a
few others that were very lacking. My favorite so far is Cloud9, which has a
ton of useful features. Nitrous is second but lacking features such as code
beautify which is annoying.

------
xoail
I've used Cloud9 completely to make drumroll.io. Very impressed for Node.js
projects.

------
timwis
I used Koding.com and c9.io extensively but got really frustrated when they
were down or slow due to high usage, so just got my own $5/mo box and began
doing it there.

I use
[codebox]([https://github.com/CodeboxIDE/codebox](https://github.com/CodeboxIDE/codebox))
on a digital ocean droplet for nearly all my development. It's a simple-to-
install node app, though it's not being actively developed from what I can
tell so I'd really like to switch to a local install of cloud9.

------
westoque
I always found the cloud IDE's hard to work with. Mostly because of speed, and
mostly because they are forcing all the tools (terminal, editor, etc) to live
in one browser window.

------
freebs
I used terminal.com the past few weeks. It had a couple quirks that were easy
to get used to. It was stable until this last weekend where it was very slow
and timing out the entire weekend. Sent them a tweet and support email on
Saturday, they finally tweeted me back on Tuesday. Kind of frustrating but it
is a fairly new service. I'm hoping that services such as Nitrous and C9 are
much more stable since they've been around a bit longer. I guess I'll find
out...

~~~
iancarroll
Terminal is neat, but I've had my instance fail to start twice and I never got
a response from help@terminal.com. Ended up having to wait a few days each
time for it to start working again.

------
bmestrallet
You can check some [http://www.codenvy.com](http://www.codenvy.com) user
reviews (more than 400) on Google Chrome store
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/codenvy/lefigjbiim...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/codenvy/lefigjbiimiemfhjmibbgemkpenelmag/reviews)

------
larryweya
I often use Jetbrains IDEs, currently using PHP Storm almost exclusivel. I
love it's code refactoring, easy source code navigation to delarations.

~~~
eonw
i too enjoy using jetbrains' products.

------
morganvachon
I'm not a developer; the closest I get is managing a few web servers for
clients on the side. That said, if I were I'd spin up a Vultr or Dropbox
instance and use something like Codiad[1], that way I could have complete
control of the back end.

[1] [http://codiad.com/](http://codiad.com/)

------
lmm
So far I've stuck to Eclipse, but I wonder about using one for Scala.js (which
I'm planning on using for my next personal project) just because of the
toolchain and because it seems like it could make the edit-test cycle shorter.
Is there anything out there with integrated Scala.js support?

------
feybay
I used Cloud9 for a while. The lag from typing on my keyboard to showing up on
my screen became pronounced that I stopped using the service. I was on the
free tier. I can see the appeal, but the execution of this service was too
poor for me to use. Perhaps in the future I'll try again.

~~~
chr1
Was this log in terminal or in editor? While there is some lag in terminal
because of network latency (same as with normal ssh connection), i never saw
any lag in the editor, so it must be some bug triggered by specific browser/os
version, did you try contacting their support about this?

------
SteveMoody73
The only one I've tried is the mbed development tools. Easy to import
libraries and built in version control.

I'm not sure how good it would be for a big project but it's been a pleasant
experience with the few small programs I've written on it so far.

------
afshinmeh
Due to Internet connection issues I can't use a cloud IDEs. However, I think
[https://cloudpebble.net/](https://cloudpebble.net/) is one of most populars.

Wish they support VIM keybindings as well.

------
csomar
I use VIM. You can read my configuration here: [http://omarabid.com/my-vim-
configuration/](http://omarabid.com/my-vim-configuration/)

~~~
corysama
Meanwhile, back on topic, has anyone here tried Vim.js? It's the full, real
vim. But, I'm interested in how well a vim expert thinks it works.

[http://coolwanglu.github.io/vim.js/streamlinejs/vim.html](http://coolwanglu.github.io/vim.js/streamlinejs/vim.html)

------
jupi
What I like with Codenvy is the native support of Docker Also now with meter
based pricing, I only pay for what I use and most of the time the free tier is
enough for my personal work

------
btreecat
We have a few web2py projects at work and I find that the built in
IDE/debugger works just fine and is less of a hassle than Pycharm although a
lot less robust as well.

------
antidaily
Yeah I can edit files over FTP from CPanel. Works awesome, guys.

------
mrfusion
Ok really dumb question. How do they see your local files?

~~~
vvpan
Or how do you run your app unless it's a front-end app? Just in isolated
virtual environments?

~~~
TimJRobinson
Yea Cloud9 gives you a virtual container (with root access too) that you can
run anything in just like you would on your local machine.

------
bitwize
If I ever find myself on a job where I have to drive a remote Unix box with a
fucking Web browser instead of xterm+ssh, I will not work there long.

~~~
Jonovono
Cool man. Good to know.

------
dandare
Any of these WEB IDEs support TypeScript? Thanks.

------
maxura
I use "codenvy.com" for java developing and deploying simple java web-
applications in cloud

------
rakkaus
codenvy.com - because java. there is full java support, navigate,
autocomplete, outline and even java debugger.

------
aikah
really like cloud9, I can test stuffs fast. But I'll be moving to vagrant +
docker soon.

