Provides developers with an integrated development environment (IDE) that allows them to draw and code in the browser. You can access its development environment from any device to achieve a “drawable and writable development environment”, enjoy a seamless workflow, and use your own tools.
Project overview
- project positioning: Provides a drawable and codeable platform in the browser, integrating whiteboard (based on Excalidraw) and cloud development environment (driven by Coder)
- core functions：
- Drawing and visual thinking: The whiteboard interface supports instant drawing, mind mapping, etc.
- Embedded IDE: Integrate VS Code and terminal into the whiteboard to realize code editing and execution.
- Cloud environment management: Call the Coder backend to provide users with a container/VM-based development environment.
- fast access: You can quickly open the environment on any device and location as long as you have a browser.
Core technology architecture
- front end: Use Excalidraw As a whiteboard UI.
- Back-end/Development Environment: Use Coder (open source project) to create and manage container-based development environments.
- integration mode: Provide a backend interface through FastAPI to integrate Excalidraw and Coder into one Web interface.
- deployment methods: Provided
docker-composeConfiguration allows you to quickly deploy complete services (including PostgreSQL, Redis, Keycloak, Coder, Ontology Service Pad) locally.
🔥Recent developments
- The latest version v0.1.0 is available May 28, 2025released
- GitHub is very active: 6 contributors, developed using TypeScript + Python, Star count is about 2.8k, Fork 139, Issues are actively processing.
- Docker images are frequently updated, and the latest image was released about 23 days ago.
💬Community feedback (selected by Reddit)
The project author promoted it on r/selfhosted and r/linux, and the community responded positively:
“For my personal use, I can’t tell the difference, ping is ~15 ms… you are root, you can run docker, install anything”
Some people also put forward suggestions and thoughts:
“demo account can use only one VM”
“The hidden goal of the app is to create an user‑friendly abstraction around your remote dev virtual machine.”
These exchanges show that developers focus on performance, security and user experience, and are also exploring more use scenarios such as education and collaboration.
🧭Using self-hosting guidelines
Online experience address：https://pad.ws
local deployment：
- Clone warehouse, copy
.env.templatefor.env。 - Launch containers such as PostgreSQL, Redis, Keycloak, and Coder.
- Finally run the pad container and visit
http://localhost:8000You can log in. - Note: The current Compose configuration is suitable for testing and is not recommended for direct use in production environments
Summary
| highlights | description |
|---|---|
| Whiteboard+ IDE integration | Very friendly to the needs of coupling visual thinking and development |
| ˇCloud environment | Does not rely on the local environment and is available out of the box |
| Open source+ self-hosted | Completely free and deeply customizable |
| is still in its early stages | Some functions such as collaboration, image storage, etc. are still under development |
Project address:https://github.com/pad-ws/pad.ws
Online use:https://pad.ws/
Oil tubing: