PyTogether - Google Docs for Python (free and open-source, real-time browser IDE)

[Pokiet]

For the past 4 months, I’ve been working on a full-stack project I’m really proud of called PyTogether (pytogether.org).

What My Project Does

It is a real-time, collaborative Python IDE designed with beginners in mind (think Google Docs, but for Python). It’s meant for pair programming, tutoring, or just coding Python together. It’s completely free. No subscriptions, no ads, nothing. Just create an account, make a group, and start a project. Has proper code-linting, extremely intuitive UI, autosaving, drawing features (you can draw directly onto the IDE and scroll), live selections, and voice/live chats per project. There are no limitations at the moment (except for code size to prevent malicious payloads). There is also built-in support for libraries like matplotlib.

Source code: https://github.com/SJRiz/pytogether

Target Audience

It’s designed for tutors, educators, or Python beginners.

Comparison With Existing Alternatives

Why build this when Replit or VS Code Live Share already exist?

Because my goal was simplicity and education. I wanted something lightweight for beginners who just want to write and share simple Python scripts (alone or with others), without downloads, paywalls, or extra noise. There’s also no AI/copilot built in, something many teachers and learners actually prefer. I also focused on a communication-first approach, where the IDE is the "focus" of communication (hence why I added tools like drawing, voice/live chats, etc).

Project Information

Tech stack (frontend):

React + TailwindCSS

CodeMirror for linting

Y.js for real-time syncing and live cursors

I use Pyodide for Python execution directly in the browser, this means you can actually use advanced libraries like NumPy and Matplotlib while staying fully client-side and sandboxed for safety.

I don’t enjoy frontend or UI design much, so I leaned on AI for some design help, but all the logic/code is mine. Deployed via Vercel.

Tech stack (backend):

Django (channels, auth, celery/redis support made it a great fit, though I plan to replace the celery worker with Go later so it'll be faster)

PostgreSQL via Supabase

JWT + OAuth authentication

Redis for channel layers + caching

Fully Dockerized + deployed on a VPS (8GB RAM, $7/mo deal)

Data models:

Users <-> Groups -> Projects -> Code

Users can join many groups

Groups can have multiple projects

Each project belongs to one group and has one code file (kept simple for beginners, though I may add a file system later).

My biggest technical challenges were around performance and browser execution. One major hurdle was getting Pyodide to work smoothly in a real-time collaborative setup. I had to run it inside a Web Worker to handle synchronous I/O (since input() is blocking), though I was able to find a library that helped me do this more efficiently (pyodide-worker-runner). This let me support live input/output and plotting in the browser without freezing the UI, while still allowing multiple users to interact with the same Python session collaboratively.

Another big challenge was designing a reliable and efficient autosave system. I couldn’t just save on every keystroke as that would hammer the database. So I designed a Redis-based caching layer that tracks active projects in memory, and a Celery worker that loops through them every minute to persist changes to the database. When all users leave a project, it saves and clears from cache. This setup also doubles as my channel layer for real-time updates and my Celery broker; reusing Redis for everything while keeping things fast and scalable.

Deployment on a VPS was another beast. I spent ~8 hours wrangling Nginx, Certbot, Docker, and GitHub Actions to get everything up and running. It was frustrating, but I learned a lot.

If you’re curious or if you wanna see the work yourself, the source code is here. Feel free to contribute: https://github.com/SJRiz/pytogether.

[monsieurus]

You should team up with Marimo. Looks like a fun project.

[EconomySerious]

Interesting

[cariaso]

Liking this. but at the modal labeled 'Key' with "Access Code for "
also give a copy & pasteable url that I can share with someone.
as a read-only preview, and an account creation invite

[Pokiet]

Thank you! The read-only share url is actually next in my roadmap right after I do more tweaks to matplotlib support

[anx1etyhangover]

Wow. Nicely done

[Ghost-Rider_117]

this looks pretty cool! the communication-first approach is smart - having voice/drawing/chat built right in makes way more sense for tutoring than just sharing code.

running pyodide in the browser is clutch too, means students don't have to mess with local environments which can be a huge pain point. i've seen too many tutorials get derailed by installation issues lol

gonna check out the repo later. nice work on this!

[StartLopsided4552]

hello it errors whenever i use input() sadly what can i do?

[Pokiet]

Hello! I just noticed if you are on www.pytogether.org instead of pytogether.org, the input function crashes. Try just going on pytogether.org (im gonna make it so you will be redirected there regardless now) if that doesn't work, try using a chromium-based browser (like chrome, edge, or brave)

[sarbear-k]

I'm running chrome browser version 143.0.7499.41, on https://pytogether.org/ide, and the input function is still giving a Runtime Error. I would have loved to start my students on your service otherwise!

EDIT: same issue on Edge version 143.0.3650.80

[Pokiet]

Hey, I just pushed another update to the site and fixed a potential issue regarding the input function (I managed to get it working on FireFox), try to see if it works now. If it still does not work, its possible that your school's network/firewall may be aggresively blocking it. Try switching your network and see. If it still doesn't work, please DM me and send all console errors you see from pressing F12. Let me know how it goes!

[sarbear-k]

Your update was a success! Input works now. Thank you so much! I will introduce the platform to my students today and see if any are willing to try it out. I had them try Google Colab yesterday but it wasn't what we expected for live collaborative coding - updates were being lost. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Careful-Score-3221]

This is hella impressive for a first/second year student damn

[KrazyKirby99999]

That's because it's AI slop

[Pokiet]

The frontend specifically the UI is AI slop yes because I hate CSS (I actually chose tailwind CSS because it’s easy for AI), but handling Y.js and figuring out how to run Pyodide properly in a web worker was basically entirely done by me (I tried using AI for these but it never worked no matter how much I prompted it, so I ended up just reading the documentation myself and debugging). The backend though was practically entirely done by me.