A friend and I are both about six months into learning programming, but we live in different places and want to build a project together. We're looking for something that lets us talk, edit code simultaneously, and work in the same project in real time—similar to how Figma supports collaborative design. What tools or platforms would work well for this?
3 Answers
Replit’s collaboration mode may be the closest match to what you described. It allows multiple people to edit the same code in real time and includes built-in voice and chat features, which makes it convenient for a small beginner project.
GitHub or GitLab are useful for storing code, reviewing changes, and collaborating through version control, but they don’t provide the same live, shared editing experience by themselves. You’d likely pair one of them with a call or a live-coding tool such as Live Share.
Visual Studio Code’s Live Share extension is a strong option. It supports pair programming, shared debugging, and even terminal access without requiring you to push every change to a Git provider. You can also use a video call alongside it if you want to talk while working.
Whichever tool you choose, it’s still worth learning basic version control early. Real-time editing is convenient, but Git makes it much easier to track changes and recover when something goes wrong.