
Online, collaborative LaTeX editor - mrb
https://www.sharelatex.com/
======
foepys
We are using a sharelatex installation at work and so far it's pretty good.
But the installation is a nightmare. There is a docker container available but
the documentation is pretty scattered across multiple GitHub repo wikis. And
when you got it to run with all environment variables, you need to install all
latex packages inside the container. So unless you hack your way around it by
using an additional volume with a working receive installation, you need to
install latex from scratch each time you update the container.

~~~
jpallen
ShareLaTeX Co-founder here. I'm glad that it works well for you once set up!

As for the installation, I know, this bit kind of sucks, sorry :( How long ago
did you last install/upgrade? My co-founder is working pretty much full time
on improving the ease of installation and configuration. One of the
difficulties is that we use a lot of small services, which is great for large
scale deployment, but a bit of a nightmare for producing a single standalone
installable service with a unified config system. We're getting there though,
and it's a priority at the moment. If you've got any feedback or problems you
hit, please reach out at team@sharelatex.com. Thanks!

~~~
greenspot
> it's a priority at the moment

Out of curiosity: wouldn't improving the self-hosting experience cannibalize
subscriptions of your paid plans?

~~~
jpallen
Possibly slightly, but it's outweighed by the benefits of having an open-
source self-hosted option (both for our business model and the greater good of
the world).

Our working hypothesis is that people fall into one of two categories
(possibly both, but only one at a time):

a) Those who just want a simple to use LaTeX environment that just works for
their task at hand.

b) Those who are more interested in the tech, and happy to install software
locally, happy to explore things like git for collaboration and really refine
their own personal workflows with the tools they like.

The paid plans are used by people in category (a) and would never be of much
interest to those in category (b). But the self-hosted option is great for
some people in category (b).

We also have a paid version of self-hosted ShareLaTeX, with direct support
from us, and enterprise features like LDAP, admin controls for managing
thousands of users, etc. The open-source version forms a natural part of this,
(see GitLab, etc)

~~~
hatmatrix
Or c) Those who are interested in tech and the possibility of a open-source
self-hosted option, but too busy to install and maintain it so also paying for
a subscription like those in category (a).

We (my small research group) chose it over Authorea and others because of this
possibility and implication that we won't get caught in a vendor lock-in
situation in the future.

~~~
jpallen
Exactly! That's what I meant by "possibly both, but only one at a time". At
the moment you're in group (a), but might shift to group (b) later. I'd guess
that if and when that shift occurs, we'd lose you as a paid user, regardless
of whether we had an open-source version or not. This way at least you get an
easier transition, and you'd still be using 'ShareLaTeX' which helps us from a
brand recognition POV.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I have to applaud your attitude. And your strategy. It's actually pretty
clever to support the host your own so people can see it's a way to avoid
lock-in.

------
nameless912
I took a foundations of CS and algorithms class a couple years ago. Problem
sets were done in groups and had to be submitted typed (preferably in LaTeX).
This site saved my ass more times than I can count.

------
parent5446
How does this compare feature-wise to Overleaf, which, while it does not have
realtime collaboration, does allow for collaborators (for free) and offers
Dropbox integration for cheaper.

~~~
pepijndevos
I can not test the collaboration features, as they are not free. It seems it
offers Google-style true real-time collaboration, whereas on Overleaf random
chunks of text just appear and editing the same paragraph together never
works.

I imported a report I wrote in Overleaf, and I must say I'm impressed.

Rendering is not automatic, but much quicker and of higher quality.
(selectable text vs blury images in Overleaf) In Overleaf you sometimes spend
quite a bit of time waiting if your long equation in a long report turned out
correct, only to find out someone else made a syntax error.

Error reporting is also much better. In Overleaf an error in your bib file
would usually generate an opaque error that leaves you hunting for the missing
bracket. It remains to be seen how this works out in a collaborative setting.

While Overleaf also let you jump to the code corresponding to the rendering,
ShareLatex goes both ways. Neither of them are very reliable, but it's a
useful feature when it works.

I've not tested it, but it seems ShareLatex allows you to choose the LaTeX
engine and keybindings. So Vim/Emacs users will probably like this.

~~~
jpallen
Thanks for the review/feedback! You've identified two things that we've put a
lot of work into at ShareLaTeX: Good real-time collaboration, and fast good
PDF previews. Getting these right have been core to the whole product - when
it works you don't really notice, but if it doesn't work perfectly, it's
really frustrating. Collaboration and our scalable LaTeX rendering
infrastructure are probably where most of the complexity and 'cleverness' in
our code lies, so it's nice to know it's well received :)

~~~
pepijndevos
These will definitely help convert Google Drive users. As a developer I'm more
used to the edit-compile-verify cycle, but it's still nice.

Also made me rewatch Inventing on Principle
[https://vimeo.com/36579366](https://vimeo.com/36579366)

------
chezhead
I made my resume and other misc. uni papers on this site. Super nifty!

~~~
rmelly
Same. Very useful.

------
yamalight
We tried to use locally installed sharelatex instead of our SVN papers
repository in our research group. Good god, did we switch back really quick -
not only the install process is godawful (no proper docs, outdated
instruction, outdated dockerfile, missing docker-compose, took me a week to
figure it out), absence of any stability along with zero way to administer it
properly (no UI for users management, you have to send commands through shell
to provide admin rights) just killed it for us. :\

------
williamstein
Competitors in online LaTeX, with links to pricing plans:

\- OverLeaf (formerly WriteLaTeX) \-
[https://www.overleaf.com/](https://www.overleaf.com/) \-
[https://www.overleaf.com/plans](https://www.overleaf.com/plans)

\- Papeeria - Cloud research platform Online LaTeX and Markdown editor and
plot compiler. Free, fast and reliable. \-
[http://papeeria.com/](http://papeeria.com/) \-
[https://papeeria.com/about/pricing](https://papeeria.com/about/pricing)

\- ShareLatex - LaTeX, evolved \-
[https://www.sharelatex.com](https://www.sharelatex.com) \-
[https://www.sharelatex.com/user/subscription/plans](https://www.sharelatex.com/user/subscription/plans)

\- LaTeX Base \- [https://latexbase.com](https://latexbase.com) \-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LaTeX/comments/4tn6vf/latex_base_on...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LaTeX/comments/4tn6vf/latex_base_online_editor_july_updates/)
\-
[https://latexbase.com/p/b0a174a5-09b3-4598-9686-3a73be2dc8e5](https://latexbase.com/p/b0a174a5-09b3-4598-9686-3a73be2dc8e5)
\-
[https://latexbase.com/static/overview](https://latexbase.com/static/overview)
\-
[https://latexbase.com/static/pricing](https://latexbase.com/static/pricing)

\- Authorea \- [https://www.authorea.com](https://www.authorea.com) \-
[https://www.authorea.com/user_plans](https://www.authorea.com/user_plans)

\- SageMathCloud [disclaimer: I wrote the LaTeX editor for this] \-
[https://cloud.sagemath.com](https://cloud.sagemath.com) \-
[https://cloud.sagemath.com/policies/pricing.html](https://cloud.sagemath.com/policies/pricing.html)

------
irfansharif
I've been using this to typeset all my assignments and reports for school,
additionally my resume. great find, saved me tons of time and flexible enough
to let me be able to pick off where I left off from anywhere. I do wish there
were free student packages to offer versioning my work with Github.

------
swsieber
For those self hosting, you can also run ShareLaTeX from Sandstorm
(https:sandstorm.io) - that should make self hosting significantly easier, but
the last update was in Nov, 2015..

