Host code-server without installing anything
Visual Studio Code running on the server and displayed in your browser: terminal, files and builds stay over there, your machine is only a screen.
Starting at €15.99/month
Introduction
code-server installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. Visual Studio Code in your browser, with a terminal and extensions: a complete development environment reachable from any machine. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Performance at €15.99/month incl. VAT — 8 GB of memory, against a theoretical minimum of 2 GB. The editor itself is light; what consumes is everything it starts behind it: the TypeScript language server, gopls or rust-analyzer indexing the project, file watching, ESLint, and the build itself. Opening a serious repository with 2 GB is possible; working in it all day is much less so.
There is nothing to migrate: you clone your repositories from the built-in terminal, as on any machine. SSH keys live on the server, commits leave from there, and your editor preferences come back by pasting your settings.json. Extensions come from the Open VSX registry, the open marketplace used by code-server, VSCodium and Gitpod.
What managed hosting changes
A real terminal, on the machine
The built-in shell is the server's: git, package managers, build scripts. A build you start keeps going when you close the laptop lid, and you find it finished when you reopen the tab.
Extensions through Open VSX
ESLint, Prettier, GitLens and the Vue, Tailwind, Docker or Go extensions install from the open Open VSX registry, the one VSCodium and Gitpod use as well. Highlighting, formatting and debugging behave as in the desktop editor.
A development machine from an iPad
There is nothing to install on the client side: a recent browser is enough. A Chromebook, a tablet or an old laptop become usable workstations, since the work happens on the server.
Preview what you are building
The dev server you start in the terminal — port 3000, 5173, 8000 — is reachable from the browser through code-server's built-in proxy, without opening that port to the rest of the internet.
Why hand it over rather than install it
A developer switching between two machines
The evening laptop and the office desktop open the same session: same files open, same extensions, same terminal with its history. No more dependencies to reinstall on both sides.
A trainer preparing lab sessions
The environment is set up once, with the right language version and the right tools. Participants work in an identical context, and "it works on my machine" leaves the room.
Someone whose computer can no longer keep up
Compilation, indexing and tests run on the server. The seven-year-old laptop only has to display a web page, and it is perfectly capable of that.
A developer on the move
The train connection drops, the session stays open on the server side. You reopen the tab on arrival and the process started an hour earlier has finished its work.
A project whose data must not be copied
The repository, the dataset and the credentials stay on the machine. No file lands on the laptop's disk, which makes the security conversation much shorter.
A development environment hosted in France
The instance runs in our own infrastructure in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and the automatic backup kept for 14 days restores from the client area.
Frequently asked questions
No, and it is better to know before switching. code-server draws from Open VSX, an open registry holding the vast majority of everyday extensions: ESLint, Prettier, GitLens, Vue, Svelte, Tailwind, Go, Rust, Docker. Extensions published by Microsoft, however — Pylance, the C# extension, the Remote Development family — carry a licence reserving them for Microsoft products, and they are not on Open VSX. For Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust or PHP, open equivalents do the job; for C# or .NET, check this point before committing.
On the server, and that is the whole point. The terminal you see is the machine's: you clone repositories there, generate SSH keys there, push commits from there. The browser only displays the editor — nothing is copied onto the machine you are working from, which settles the question of shared or borrowed laptops.
No. One code-server instance is one workspace and one session: excellent for a single person, quickly awkward for several, since there is neither isolation between users nor account management. For a team, plan one instance per developer. And do not share the password: whoever has it gets a terminal on the machine.
Nothing. You choose the application, fill in the two or three fields it asks for, and it goes online; the address and credentials arrive by email. The recommended plan for code-server is App Performance, at €15.99/month incl. VAT with 8 GB of memory, and it can be changed later without reinstalling.
Yes, they are part of the service. A self-hosted application left un-updated is a security risk, not a saving — and an editor that hands out a terminal deserves to be kept up to date seriously. Version upgrades are applied and checked by us, with a backup kept for 14 days.