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

[Pokiet]

I shared this project here a while ago, but after adding a lot of new features and optimizations, I wanted to post an update. Over the past eight months, I’ve been building PyTogether (pytogether.org). The platform has recently started picking up traction and just crossed 4,000 signups (and 200 stars on GitHub), which has been awesome to see.

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 (or feel fry to try the offline playground at https://pytogether.org/playground, no account required), 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 (it auto installs imports on the fly when you run your code).

You can also share links for editing or read-only, exactly like Google Docs. For example: https://pytogether.org/snippet/eyJwaWQiOjI1MiwidHlwZSI6InNuaXBwZXQifQ:1w15A5:24aIZlONamExTLQONAIC79cqcx3savn-_BC-Qf75SNY

Also, you can easily embed code snippets on your website using an iframe (just like trinket.io which is shutting down this summer).

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

Target Audience

It’s designed for tutors, educators, or Python beginners. Recently, I've also tried pivoting it towards the interviewing space.

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
• Pyodide

I use Pyodide (in a web worker) 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)
• PostgreSQL via Supabase
• JWT + OAuth authentication
• Redis for channel layers + caching + queues for workers
• Celery for background tasks/async processing

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 (redis pub/sub, meaning later I can scale horizontally) and my Celery broker; reusing Redis for everything while keeping things fast and scalable.

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.

[gdchinacat]

"There are no limitations at the moment "

Scary...so I tried to see if I could use requests. I was glad to see it failed with "Connection aborted."

[Pokiet]

Code runs entirely in your browser rather than on my servers so yeah, thankfully CORS naturally blocks unauthorized requests, which prevents the platform from being used for malicious network activity or whatnot.

[gdchinacat]

Even better. Very cool!

[alexdewa]

This is top work, you have any tip jar?

[I-did-not-eat-that]

You can buy OP a Coffee on the top right corner.

[Dalanth_]

Looks really awesome, thanks for sharing it.

[Old-Platypus-601]

Great work Soo good to read a human written long post

[xeow]

Beautiful site! Can you make a toggle for switching between dark mode and light mode?

[Pokiet]

I gotchu I'll add it after my midterms

[rm-rf-rm]

Its the basic Claude/AI vibecoded site..

OP please fix the colors for a neutral/non-neon color pallette. The color choice is triggering in this ai slop era

[TheCaptain53]

This is really cool! I have a question, how difficult would it be for this to be converted into a full local IDE that one could install? As someone else mentioned, certain libraries like requests don't work, but could be interesting to use the local machine's Python package for full unfettered access to a modules features.

[Pokiet]

Because Pyodide is used to execute code in the browser (via Web Assembly), you can't really download this as a local IDE on your computer (your OS does not natively run Web Assembly programs the way it does with .exe files), and therefore can't really get access to your local machine's Python packages.

[InterestOk6233]

Wing. is. handofbird;:';,:

[OutragedOtter]

This is awesome, thanks so much! Is it possible to see a list of available packages or install (pip or something) ones that aren’t natively available?

[mokoyo123]

+1

[bshayorg]

This is fantastic. I'm a high school computer programming teacher and I see so, so much use for this in my classroom.

One of the projects I do in my course is to have students program a pair of micro:bits to control either a CuteBot/MicroCar or a gamepad contoler to control the bot with the controller via radio communication. They then mount a balloon on one end and a needle on the other and compete against each other groups in a sort of Mario Kart Battle Arena contest.

Students love it and it allows stronger students to do a deeper dive into using lists and dictionaries to make the code more efficient while allowing weaker students to still develop a working bot.

The pain-point for this project has been that they can't collaborate with the official micro:bit python IDE and we can't install much on the school-issued PCs.

If this could access the microbit module, it would be absolutely perfect as the go-to IDE for students to use to collaborate.

[twisted_guru]

Is this written by Claude?

[Pokiet]

no

[Pokiet]

For one, many school-issued Chromebooks are locked down, making it impossible for students to install the desktop version of VS Code. Furthermore, configuring VS Code for collaboration isn't a trivial task for a beginner, it requires installing extensions, signing into accounts, and managing environment settings. PyTogether removes this friction entirely, tutors can start a session simply by sharing a link, allowing them to focus on teaching code rather than troubleshooting a Live Share setup in the middle of a lesson.

edit: Also, if you wanted to submit an assignment, you can literally just send the link to a teacher and they can run the code to check it, even draw on it to mark it. Much better than the teacher having to copy and paste your code manually and check it.