Firepad

Firepad

Firepad is a collaborative real-time code and text editor that allows multiple users to edit text documents or code simultaneously. It is an open-source web application and features syntax highlighting, cursor presence, and text formatting.
Firepad image
realtime collaborative editor coding

Firepad: Collaborative Real-Time Code Editor

Open-source web app for simultaneous text document or code editing with syntax highlighting, cursor presence, and text formatting

What is Firepad?

Firepad is an open-source, real-time collaborative code and text editor. It allows multiple users to edit text documents or code in the same file at the same time while seeing each other's edits character-by-character as they happen.

Some of the key features of Firepad include:

  • Real-time collaboration - Changes made by any user are immediately reflected on the screens of all other users who are editing the same document.
  • Rich-text formatting - Supports headers, bold, italics, hyperlinks, lists, etc. Formatting is preserved when changes are synced between users.
  • Code syntax highlighting - Detects languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and highlights code accordingly.
  • User presence indication - Shows cursors of other users editing the file so you can see who is editing what part of the document.
  • Offline persistence - Changes are saved locally, so users can view and edit even without an internet connection.

Firepad is built on the Firebase real-time database which handles the multi-user syncing and data storage. It can be embedded easily into any web application to add real-time collaboration capabilities. The editor interface uses CodeMirror and supports text editing as well as code editing with appropriate syntax highlighting.

Firepad Features

Features

  1. Real-time collaborative text editor
  2. Supports multiple simultaneous users
  3. Code syntax highlighting
  4. Text formatting options
  5. Cursor presence indication
  6. Accessible via web browser

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Enables seamless collaboration

Open source and free to use

Works well for agile teams

Easy to integrate into apps

Supports major code languages

Cons

Limited features compared to full IDEs

Formatting options could be better

Not optimized for large documents

Requires account creation to save documents


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