Web-Based and Cloud Alternatives

Users suggest that browser-based solutions like GitHub Codespaces, Replit, or self-hosted web IDEs (like `opencode`) offer a superior experience to terminal tunneling. These tools often provide better UI elements for mobile browsers and abstract away the need to manage hardware or VPNs, allowing users to code via a web interface that handles state management and environments automatically.

Developers are moving away from the friction of terminal tunneling in favor of "vibe coding" through web-based platforms like Replit and cloud-integrated GitHub workflows that turn mobile development from a chore into a conversational reality. These solutions offer superior state management and mobile-optimized interfaces, allowing users to build MVPs or deploy bug fixes directly from a phone browser without the need to manage complex local hardware. While commercial tools like Claude’s web interface and GitHub Copilot provide immediate ease of use, a dedicated segment of the community still champions self-hosted alternatives like OpenCode and Tailscale to maintain full environmental control and data privacy. Ultimately, this shift represents a fundamental change in software creation, where the ability to seamlessly bridge the gap between an unprompted idea and a live deployment is now accessible from any device.

View on HN · Topics

Why not use a browser?

OpenCode has a webUI, you can simply host that on your machine at home and VPN to it.

https://opencode.ai/docs/server/ (sadly no screenshots, but its a pretty good GUI, looks like their desktop app)

View on HN · Topics

Well the beauty is the logic lives on the server. The client is just a client.

If it disconnects you just reload the page. It can work just fine in the background because it’s not running on your phone.

Just like you can refresh the ChatGPT website, but OpenCode lives on your pc at home, not OpenAI servers.

View on HN · Topics

From that page:

> The opencode serve command runs a headless HTTP server that exposes an OpenAPI endpoint…

Unless I missed it, there’s no mention of a web UI?

View on HN · Topics

The docs are very behind, there is indeed a full blown webui and with opencode serve you can access it

View on HN · Topics

`opencode web` runs the web ui. It's very good.

View on HN · Topics

Cloudflare worker would work, too

View on HN · Topics

I’ve been doing some of this through a term on my phone, but it honestly sucks. Other interfaces (telegram, web ui, email) are gonna be much better experiences on your phone.

View on HN · Topics

ive tried slack before, but a challenge is how well you can get results returned back in a way where you can actually see what it did and give proper next steps

getting a PR back and being able to put comments on it is fine, but ive had middling success getting qcli at least to actually match the comments with the code that was commented on. i get the sense that there isnt any training with the comments inlined well on a diff:/

it doesnt have to be a vpn though, i was on an oauth webbrowser terminal, and things like coder[0] let you run vscode on the browser, including on your phone browser. there's also happy coder[1] which i tried using to connect between the new builtin android linux vm, and skip all the remote stuff entirely, but the phone would inevitably kill the terminal runbing claude, killing the whole thing. you can currently just run claude from your phone in that, which only has the problem that when the vm crashes, all you can do is wipe the partition.

[0] https://coder.com/
[1] https://happy.engineering/

View on HN · Topics

You don't need a VPN to vibe code on your phone. I've been happily doing thumb-driven development for the last 4 months now using GitHub Copilot on github.com from my phone. It even has real-time chat with copilot as it works. Having your PRs deploy to an environment allows you to check it. I also have playwright tests that record screenshots and traces that get uploaded as artifacts I can check too.

View on HN · Topics

I code from my phone via GitHub and the Claude actions plugin.

View on HN · Topics

Hey, come on, it could be better: you could have hundreds of employees venting directly to chat logs held by Microsoft detailing all your internal politics, planning, customer acquisition strategies, code, integrations desires, excel sheets, emails, and projects.

Nothing could possibly go wrong, those guys are always 100% trustworthy and reliable, contracts and NDAs with them are ironclad and easily enforceable… … o_o

View on HN · Topics

Being able to “code” from your phone really feels like a huge change; it never took before because coding from your phone was miserable, but if you’re just coding by having a conversation then it might even be better to do it from your phone. I don’t know what that leads to, but it’s let me fix bugs from bed and build an MVP while moving, so I can’t complain.

For anyone looking for a more integrated and smaller approach, I built an open source app builder + runtime: https://github.com/tinykit-studio/tinykit

Basically gives you a Lovable-like app builder with built-in services (database/files/auth/email/payments/etc), content and design fields, and a code editor. Code is a single Svelte 5 file, and you can build/host unlimited apps on one server. And the server is just node + PocketBase, so runs easy on a $2 VPS. And LLM is BYOKey.

View on HN · Topics

My flow is GitHub issues+ GitHub Copilot+ Web Deployments from GitHub actions.

I can just ask GitHub to fix something from the mobile app, and then set it to build on PR merge. It works most of the time, but you'd have to be absolutely wacky to do it in production or with any code you actually care about

View on HN · Topics

I've been working on something similar: https://github.com/shepherdjerred/monorepo/tree/main/package...

Essentially you run a server on some machine. Sessions are created in Docker containers, K8s pods, or via Zellij (an app similar to tmux).

You can:

- Directly attach to sessions via Docker attach (built-in via a TUI). You get a normal Claude Code experience, but multiplexed. The switcher/UI shows you the status of Claude and the PR (pushed, merge conflicts, CI status, review status, etc.)

- Manage sessions via a web UI. Connect to Claude Code directly via your browser. You have access to the usual Claude Code terminal or a native chat view.

- Manage sessions via an app. You have access to a native chat view.

It achieves isolation via Git worktrees + a proxy so that containers have access to zero credentials (there aren't even any Claude code creds in the container), which allows you to more safely use bypass all permissions mode.

This works better for me that Claude Code on Web because I have control over the environment Claude is running in. I can give it any Docker image I want, I can have it connect to my local network, etc.

It's still a WIP (the core bits are there, but it's not polished yet), but I'm hoping it provides a friendlier UX with a similar goal for what the OP has in mind.

View on HN · Topics

That's the whole point of Tailscale or just any VPN really : it doesn't matter what your ISP says, as long as you can establish a connection to the outside, the outside can connect back. Tailscale just makes that easier if you are not familiar with VPN setup.

FWIW typically ISP blocks port related to spamming, so usually they block ports related to emails, e.g. SMTP, I believe DNS too, but other ports no problem.

That being said it's quite a silly use case IMHO. If you want to work on a project from "anywhere" then put your project on your server accessible from anywhere, that's literally what servers are for and they cost the price of a coffee per month.

View on HN · Topics

I'm using exe.dev for something like this. Well, from a laptop, but others have done it from their phone.

I'd link to a blog post about my setup, but I'm still writing it. Here's someone else's blog post:

https://commaok.xyz/ai/just-in-time-software/

View on HN · Topics

Hmm, you could probably setup ad hoc builds and send them off to Firebase App Distribution or a similar service and get them a bit faster. Still pretty cumbersome but it skips the slow signing/slow uploads/slow processing that Test Flight provides for users.

View on HN · Topics

I recommend https://happy.engineering/ . It is very easy to set up. I can have an instance in a container which contains my repository and lots of packages/binaries necessary for the work. I can then use the different binaries to run commands in the container. I was able to easily do `ls -la` in the container and email that to myself, all done from my phone. You can also connect it to applescript and whatnot in order to send sms messages, or you can connect to whatsapp. I was able to make it extract the top 5 headlines on hacker news, get the top ideas being discussed in the comments for each submission, and send all of that into my Apple Reminders for me to read on my phone.

No VPN needed.

View on HN · Topics

I'm looking at Opencode and it might be better because it allows you to abort a task. VPN needed.

View on HN · Topics

If you have GitHub copilot you can create github issues and assign them to copilot. All you need is a browser.

View on HN · Topics

I have been building a code from phone web app and doogfooding a lot - https://x.com/knivets/status/2003023386080092235?s=46

View on HN · Topics

I don’t get it. How is this different from using the Claude iOS (and I assume Android) native app and use their “Code” option. It fires up a Claude Code session in the cloud and you can vibe code anything while on the toilet.

View on HN · Topics

DIY culture I guess, but yea both Claude and Codex have native phone apps that run the agent on a cloud VM and can push PRs.

View on HN · Topics

Claude iOS is way worse. You don’t get the full tui.

View on HN · Topics

I've seen this concept a few times recently and am interested.

However, what's the benefit over just using the "Claude Code for Web" feature built into the Claude Code mobile app?

It clones your repo into a VM which has a bunch of dev tools installed, you can install additional packages, set env vars, and then prompt it remotely. The sessions can be continued from the web and desktop apps, and it can even be "teleported" into the terminal app when back at a laptop/desktop.

Would be great to understand what the differences / advantages of OP approach are.

View on HN · Topics

I feel like there’s something special about connecting to a server to build and deploying on the same server. Claude Code on the web lets you connect to a repo, test the code, and deploy it, but then you have to host the app and data somewhere else to take it live. IMO the ideal is doing everything in one place and it seems like a lot of dev tools are going in that direction too (v0, val town, deno deploy).

View on HN · Topics

I’ve only used web codex version but everything about it was slower than what’s described here, broken flows, more rate limited and impossible to “human in the loop” before a PR.

View on HN · Topics

The Claude code tui is so nice. The web and iOS apps neuter it weirdly.

View on HN · Topics

I don’t compile from my phone but I do write code using it. I use fossil for version control. The in browser editor is good enough to get ideas down. It has great diffs which is also nice. I will check in code and move it to a branch then revisit it when I’m home.

View on HN · Topics

I have been doing this with toad and opencode and it is great for those unprompted ideas that pop up while in the big blue room, but not really useful for large projects.

View on HN · Topics

Cursor--run in cloud seems to work just fine for this. I setup my project and then github to publish web or mobile app.... i believe claude can also take instructions from github...or am i missing something.

View on HN · Topics

I made something very similar for myself and now have decided to open it up to others if you want to help me beta test.. free for all and it sets you up with your own hetzner vps and you even share my claude code max account: clodhost.com

View on HN · Topics

Btw this is basically Replit's entire product (replit.com). Costs some money but the UX is pretty good

View on HN · Topics

I just use Happy https://happy.engineering/

View on HN · Topics

I am a huge fan of driving agents from my phone, though this is one of the places where I don’t think terminal UIs work. Agents need a web UI for phones.

View on HN · Topics

I am looking for some open source terminal for iphone .I have code server running which i can just use terminal from vs code on safari

View on HN · Topics

Why not Claude Code on web/cloud linked to your GH repo?

View on HN · Topics

Yeah I just built www.makerkit.io for the exact same thing

View on HN · Topics

claude.ai + vercel and you can do it all without anything but your phone

their web interface lets you use Claude code and push changes to a GitHub repository

vercel can auto build from a GitHub repo

even less setup and infrastructure needed

View on HN · Topics

Didn't vscode have a web browser version you could self host so where is the cursor version, anysphere?

View on HN · Topics

Does anyone have any good advice or resources on a good workflow to do this with web apps? There's some stuff I'd really like to solve, for myself/family, that would require a front and back-end with persistent storage.

I would love to easily be able to set this up easily when a new idea pops into my mind and then have something running (locally or securely in some cloud) within a few hours/days. I wouldn't want to spend a ton of money for this though, nor have a lot of overhead to manage.

Edit: In addition, I'd like some safeguards where I can't have the LLM of choice accidentally delete stuff or do other unintended things on my network.

View on HN · Topics

Replit is $25 a month but the best mobile allinone coding I have tried so far easy to push to host etc and you can kick off a stage then just pickup building where you left off anytime the termius/tmux/tailscale is fine but lot more effort even after you reach the command line. Horses for courses.

Summarizer