Tbf Replit is an online IDE for full stack development, that means that almost any idea you work on Saas dev tooling could be construed as a competitor.
Replit (YC W18) | Engineers & Designers | SF or REMOTE (4hrs overlap with PT) | https://replit.com/careers
What if you could influence how an entire generation of programmers code?
Replit is a collaborative in-browser IDE. We're building a stellar compute platform that runs code for millions of users, and hosts millions of apps (cheaply). Replit is the most popular entry-to-programming IDE and is the best in its collaborative capabilities. It's also increasingly the number-one destination for teenage hackers and hobbyists to build and launch apps.
Our work spans the hardest problems in computing (sandboxing, distributed systems, scheduling) and the most interesting problems in HCI ("how do you create a learnable programming environment?").
It's a unique time to join because we proved a huge demand for what we're building while also being early enough to have a huge impact and get a big part of the upside. We are only 22 people.
Replit isn't for building HA/mutli-tenant stateless, web applications with hot-hot failover, data redundancy, perfect docs and APIs
It's for people who want to learn how to code or want to prototype something absolutely as quickly as possible with the minimal amount of tooling and experience.
IMHO replit is great for spinning up a dev configuration and doing some prototyping.
It's also really good for teaching, and for sharing live-coded snipets and so on.
I have no idea about using it for actual production coding, and deploying from a repl, as I haven't tried it because it it looks far less suitable than a traditional development workflow.
But it seems like they've received some 'investment' that may be pushing them towards being an actual production tool. IMHO, this will cause them to lose their hobby, hacker, and education patrons, and still not win with serious professional, commercial ones.
Replit | Multiple roles | REMOTE (but we have NYC and SFO offices if you like) | replit.com | Full Time
Replit's mission is to make programming more accessible. We build powerful yet simple tools and platforms for educators, learners, and developers. We want to blur the line between learning and making– a place where you can hang out, tinker with ideas, learn new concepts, and launch a business all in the same day. Our main products include a collaborative web-based IDE, a powerful yet simple hosting platform, and an education-focused environment for remote learning.
We are a 30-ish blend of former founders, public educators, designers, and engineers from Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Spotify, Box, Scratch, and more-- all with educations that range from completely self-taught to bootcamp graduates and PhDs. In February 2021, we raised $20M in Series A financing led by A.Capital with strong participation from our seed investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Bloomberg Beta, Y Combinator, and Reach Capital.
Our tech stack includes a backend written mostly in Go with a bit of Rust and uses Docker, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, and Redis. The frontend is written in React/TypeScript with GraphQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
To achieve our mission, we need our team to be representative of the world. We welcome your unique perspective and experiences in shaping this product. We encourage people from all kinds of backgrounds to apply, including and especially candidates from underrepresented and non-traditional backgrounds.
Replit (YC W18) | Product Engineers, Designers, and Customer Success | REMOTE (4hrs overlap with PT) | https://repl.it/careers
Replit is a multiplayer computing environment that makes it fun to learn how to code, build, and share apps with other people.
On Replit, you can create a computer in milliseconds -- we call them "repls" -- and you can create as many of them as you'd like, all for free. Repls come with storage for your code and files, a database for your data, and a multiplayer editor & console to code with your friends. You can boost a repl for $5/month to make it bigger and faster.
When you invite a friend to your repl, you can see them in your editor and talk to them right in your code. You can make web, desktop, and even command-line apps. Replit takes care of the entire process of publishing and hosting apps so you can focus on your ideas.
Millions of people have learned how to code with Replit and built great apps with thousands of happy users. Some have even built businesses and became rich & famous. Join us to grow a new generation of hackers & entrepreneurs.
Is the basic idea of Replit, to host an IDE, as a way to make collaboration and deploying to the cloud easier?
I want to understand this better. Would this be about the same thing, as having a Linode instance, or EC2 instance, with an IDE in it. that you remote into and always have running?
If so, I can see how making this easier could be useful. It's hard for me personally to look past the middleman, but others might not have that issue, and it might be suitable for them.
This feels about the same as when people started using Blogger and eventually Geocities, and eventually Facebook to do something that could be done as a solo effort. The tradeoffs feel the same.
I'm very confused what Replit's business model these days actually is. Their landing page says "Build software faster", and mentions some AI development/deployment platform. What is the actual product? Is it an IDE or something more like Heroku? Above the fold they show an example of some order form prototype. What am I supposed to take away from that? Why would I use a service for prototyping instead of my regular dev environment?
I don't mean to be harsh, but I'm really confused (and others probably are to) what they are actually selling.
What if you could influence how an entire generation of programmers code?
Replit is a collaborative in-browser IDE. We're building a stellar compute platform that runs code for millions of users, and hosts millions of apps (cheaply). Replit is the most popular entry-to-programming IDE and is the best in its collaborative capabilities. It's also increasingly the number-one destination for teenage hackers and hobbyists to build and launch apps.
Our work spans the hardest problems in computing (sandboxing, distributed systems, scheduling) and the most interesting problems in HCI ("how do you create a learnable programming environment?").
It's a unique time to join because we proved a huge demand for what we're building while also being early enough to have a huge impact and get a big part of the upside. We are only 18 people.
I do not understand ReplIt's business model. In my head I associate them with cloud ides which were all the rage once upon a time but slowly died out. So who is using Repl It these days? They seem to be hiring frequently so I assume they are growing.
Yes, you are missing something. As stated numerous times in the article:
> Replit’s core value proposition isn’t letting you run code online (you can do this in dozens of places for free), it’s the features they offer on top of running code. Riju categorically lacked all of these features, including: having a user account, saving your work, sharing your work, publishing webapps, persistent workspaces, discussion forums, integration with GitHub, etc. etc.
> Replit makes a webapp you can use to run code online in different programming languages. This is nothing new (just Google “run python online” for proof), so Replit’s value proposition is extra features like sharing your work, installing third-party packages, and hosting webapps.
The core value proposition of Riju (toy playground for hundres of esoteric languages) != the core value proposition of Replit (feature-rich online IDE environment with lots of integrations and additional support). The only thing they have in common is that you can run code online, and that's not an even close to an original idea by Replit in any way. The CEO making a claim that this project is "copying" Replit has no actual basis given that there are literally dozens of other "copies" out there that are closer to Replit than Riju ever is/was.
I also have no idea how you can argue Riju is "very similar" to Replit, given how generic the technical common ground between them is. I also have no idea how you can argue it's a "tool" and not a toy, the author even explicitly said there was no practical purpose and served as an esoteric quarantine hobby project:
> You might ask: Why did I spend so much time adding obscure programming languages to a webapp nobody was going to use? Well, let me put it this way: Is it the weirdest 2020 hobby you’ve seen?
...
Riju is entirely non-commercial. Unlike Replit, I didn’t seek funding from any source—advertising, donations, fundraising, subscriptions, whatever. I have no interest in running a business, and never really wanted Riju to become too popular, since I was the one paying the server bill.
Replit's mission is to bring the next billion software creators online. We build powerful yet simple tools and platforms for educators, learners, and developers. We want to blur the line between learning and making– a place where you can hang out, tinker with ideas, learn new concepts, and launch a business all in the same day. Our main products include a collaborative web-based IDE, a powerful yet simple hosting platform, and an education-focused environment for remote learning.
We are a 50-ish person blend of former founders, public educators, designers, and engineers from Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Spotify, Box, Scratch, and more-- all with educations that range from completely self-taught to bootcamp graduates and PhDs. In December 2021, we announced raising $80M in Series B financing led by Coatue with strong participation from other investors: Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, Andreessen Horowitz, A Capital, Fifth Down, Bloomberg Beta, Not Boring, Addition, Reach Capital, and Volt Capital.
Our tech stack includes frontend written in React/TypeScript with GraphQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. The backend is written mostly in Go with a bit of Rust and uses Docker, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
To achieve our mission, we need our team to be representative of the world. We welcome your unique perspective and experiences in shaping this product. We encourage people from all kinds of backgrounds to apply, including and especially candidates from underrepresented and non-traditional backgrounds.
I think Replit knows that their entire business can be built by an intern with a few weeks of effort, and as a result is not valuable as a business in it's current state. They are obviously terrified that other people will realize this and there will be 500 clones out there by the time they figure out some defensible business model that locks in clients.
Starting a company is not fun for most engineers. Way more fun to get paid (a smaller amount, but way above "average") to hack at a company that has already found product-market fit. Replit doesn't have a Facebook-size audience, but it's still millions of people who you can reach with your work.
Are there any open source competitors to Replit that are seeking patrons? I have been encouraged by the rapid fire Show HNs of open source first startups [1], and this space seems ripe for such open tooling.
reply