Uppcoder: build, run and teach software in the cloud

Setting up a development environment shouldn’t be the hardest part of learning to code. Yet for many students and educators, it is. Different operating systems, version conflicts, missing dependencies — before a single line of code is written, hours can be lost. Uppcoder was built to eliminate that problem entirely.

What Is Uppcoder?

Uppcoder is a cloud-based development platform that provides instant, fully configured coding environments accessible from any browser. Each user gets their own isolated workspace — what we call a Code Lab — complete with a VS Code editor, terminal, and a pre-installed framework of their choice.

No installation. No configuration. Just open the browser and start coding.

Built for Education

Uppcoder was designed with classrooms in mind. Educators can create courses, define assignments, and provision Code Labs for every student — all from a single dashboard.

For Educators

Course Management — Create courses, organize assignments, and track student progress
One-Click Provisioning — Spin up identical environments for an entire class in seconds
LMS Integration — Connect to Moodle, Canvas, Brightspace (D2L) or Blackboard via LTI 1.3. Students click a link in their LMS and land directly in their Code Lab, and grades go back to the LMS gradebook
A replacement for GitHub Classroom — Assignments are Git repositories with starter code and tests, and courses and hand-ins can stay in the school’s own GitHub organisation (how it compares; what teachers are using now)
Autograding — Hand-ins are run against the assignment’s tests and marked with a rubric, inside Moodle or Canvas too (the guide)
Stack Flexibility — Choose from Python (Flask, Django, FastAPI), Node.js, Java (Spring Boot), or static web stacks
Live Monitoring — See which students are active, view their work, and provide real-time feedback

For Students

Zero Setup — Every Code Lab comes pre-configured with the right language, framework, and tools
VS Code in the Browser — A full Visual Studio Code experience with extensions, terminal, and Git
Persistent Workspaces — Work is saved automatically. Close the tab, come back later, and pick up exactly where you left off
JupyterLab Support — Data science students get JupyterLab with Python and common libraries pre-installed

Not Just for Education

While education is our primary focus, uppcoder works equally well for:

Hackathons — Give every participant an identical environment in minutes
Technical Interviews — Provide candidates with a real coding environment, not a whiteboard
Workshops & Training — Run hands-on coding sessions without worrying about attendee setup
Sandbox Demos — Let potential users try your product in a live, interactive environment (like our StreamGen sandbox)

AI Built In

The AI builder — Describe an app in a sentence and Uppcoder builds it: the code, a real database and a running server on its own address. No account is needed to try it, and the code is yours.
Your AI, your data — The AI we supply runs on our own infrastructure, and what you send it is not passed to any outside model provider. You can also bring your own tools and keys.

For Developers

Bring your code from Git, or start from a stack, and Uppcoder runs it as a normal app with its own database and HTTPS address. It is an alternative to Heroku, Render or Railway for small apps, and it runs on our own infrastructure, which can be kept to the region you choose, such as Europe or the United States. The free plan (Spark: one app with one database, 2 GB of memory and 2 GB of disk) needs no card and has no time limit, and paid plans start at €5 a month; if it ever changes, everyone on it hears from us by email at least 60 days before. More in Where can I deploy a Django app with PostgreSQL for free? and The cheapest way to host a FastAPI app with PostgreSQL. Step-by-step guides: Django with PostgreSQL and FastAPI with PostgreSQL.

The Technology

Under the hood, uppcoder runs each Code Lab as an isolated Docker container on a Swarm cluster. Each container gets:

A dedicated VS Code Server (OpenVSCode) with full extension support
A framework runtime (Python, Node, Java, etc.) managed via Pixi environments
An nginx reverse proxy handling routing, WebSocket connections, and security
Persistent storage so student work survives container restarts
Git integration for version control from day one

All of this is orchestrated through our custom provisioning system, which handles service creation, DNS routing, SSL certificates, and resource management automatically.

Security First

Every Code Lab is fully isolated. Students cannot access each other’s environments. All traffic is encrypted via TLS, and authentication is handled through our integration with Keycloak, supporting SSO, SAML, and OIDC.

Every app and database on Uppcoder, on every plan including the free one, is copied every night to a separate server: we keep a copy from each of the last seven days and one from each of the last four weeks. The servers apps run on have a public status page.

For LMS deployments, uppcoder supports LTI 1.3 — the latest standard for learning tool interoperability. Students authenticate through their LMS, and uppcoder automatically creates their account, enrolls them in the correct course, and drops them into the right assignment.

Try It

You can explore uppcoder right now at portal.uppcoder.com. Educator plans start with a free trial, and teachers moving from GitHub Classroom can have a course moved across for them, free until 30 June 2027.

For a quick taste of what a Code Lab feels like, try our StreamGen sandbox — no account required.

We built uppcoder because we believe the tools should get out of the way and let people focus on what matters: writing code, learning, and building things. Whether you’re teaching a class of 200 students or running a weekend hackathon, uppcoder makes it simple.

Uppcoder: A Cloud Development Platform Built for Education and Beyond