There are certainly many reasons why you should consider using an Online IDE. In Online IDEs all process run in cloud, you don't need to face any lags.

The previous year of Covid pandemic had made everyone work from home 🏡. Many Cloud IDEs became popular during that period because of many devs not having setup not strong enough.

Here are some of my favourite Cloud IDEs:-

• 1. GitPod
• 2. Repl It
• 3. GitHub CodeSpaces
• 4. Codeanywhere
• 5. Glitch

1. GitPod

GitPod is Open Source IDE which you can run on your browser. Currently it provides 2 IDE options: VS Code & Theia.

✅ All features of VS Code +

✅ 50 hours of Open Source / month

✅ You can get more Open Source hours by applying for it

✅ Fast

✅ Self Hoisting available

✅ Full Linux Shell with sudo access

✅ GitHub, GitLab & Bitbucket integration

❌ Workspaces stop in case of 5 minutes of inactivity (More time for paid users)

2. Repl It

Repl.it provides you with a IDE on your browser with a beautiful code editor with support for many languages.

✅ GitHub Integration

✅ A Linux Terminal (No sudo access)

✅ Support for a huge range of languages (Node.js, C, C++, Python, etc.)

❌ Public repls (projects) only in free tier.

❌ Repls shut after 5 minutes of inactivity

3. GitHub Codespaces

Note: currently GitHub Codespaces is in beta at the time of writing this article

✅ VS Code on the cloud

✅ Connect from your own VS Code instance.

✅ It's officially from GitHub!!

4. Codeanywhere

✅ 3 terminal per container

❌ Max 10 GB HDD per container. (May seem less if you are working on something huge)

❌ 512 MB to 2 GB RAM per container. (May seem less many times)

5. Glitch

✅ 512 MB --> 2 GB RAM

✅ 200 MB --> 400 MB Storage

❌ Projects shut down in case of 5 minutes of inactivity

❌ In case of high CPU usage for even 3-5 seconds, you are rate limited.

✅ You can boost some of your apps to exclude these limits to a certain extent.