Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

CodePen VS JS Bin

Compare CodePen VS JS Bin and see what are their differences

CodePen logo CodePen

A front end web development playground.

JS Bin logo JS Bin

Sample of the bin:
  • CodePen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30
  • JS Bin Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-10-09

CodePen features and specs

  • Real-time Collaboration
    Developers can collaborate with others in real-time, making it easy to work on projects with teammates or seek help from the community.
  • Immediate Visual Feedback
    CodePen allows you to see the results of your code as you write it, which is highly beneficial for learning and debugging.
  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
    CodePen provides a comfortable and feature-rich online IDE environment with syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and more.
  • Community-Driven
    Users can share their work with the CodePen community, receive feedback, and explore a wide range of projects created by others.
  • Extensive Resources
    CodePen offers a wealth of examples and templates for various web development tasks, making it a useful resource for learning and inspiration.
  • Cross-Device Accessibility
    Being an online platform, CodePen can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, making it convenient for developers on the move.

Possible disadvantages of CodePen

  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Since CodePen is primarily an online tool, it requires an internet connection for most of its features to work, limiting its usefulness in offline environments.
  • Performance Constraints
    Complex or resource-intensive projects may not perform as well on CodePen as they would in a full-fledged local development environment.
  • Subscription Costs
    While many features are free, advanced functionalities and additional storage options require a paid subscription, which may not be ideal for all users.
  • Limited Backend Capabilities
    CodePen is primarily designed for front-end development, so it offers limited support for backend technologies, making it less suitable for full-stack or server-side development.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and libraries can be cumbersome compared to local development environments which have better tools for this purpose, like npm.
  • Security Concerns
    Sharing projects with the public can expose your code and assets to unauthorized use, posing potential intellectual property and security risks.

JS Bin features and specs

  • Real-time Collaboration
    JS Bin allows multiple users to work on the same code simultaneously, making it easy for teams to collaborate on front-end projects in real-time.
  • Instant Preview
    Changes to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code are previewed instantly, allowing users to see the results of their work without manual refreshing or deploying.
  • Embed Feature
    Users can easily embed their bins into other web pages, making it convenient to share examples or demonstrate code snippets in blogs or documentation.
  • Debugging Tools
    JS Bin includes built-in debugging tools such as console log inspection, making it easier to identify and fix issues directly within the platform.
  • Customizable Environments
    Users can set up their preferred coding environment with various settings, including templates, libraries, and preprocessors, to enhance productivity.

Possible disadvantages of JS Bin

  • Limited Offline Use
    As a web-based application, JS Bin requires an internet connection to access and use, limiting its functionality in offline scenarios.
  • Performance Constraints
    Complex or heavy projects may experience performance issues as the platform is designed for smaller snippets and quick testing rather than large-scale applications.
  • Security Concerns
    Public sharing of bins can lead to exposure of sensitive code or data. Users need to be cautious about publicly sharing any code with proprietary or confidential information.
  • Limited Backend Capabilities
    JS Bin is focused on front-end development, so it offers minimal support for backend technologies, which may limit its use for full-stack development.
  • Subscription Cost for Premium Features
    Advanced features and additional functionalities often require a paid subscription, which may not be suitable for all users, especially hobbyists or students.

Analysis of CodePen

Overall verdict

  • Yes, CodePen is considered a good platform for web developers, both beginners and experienced. It offers a wide array of features that facilitate creative development and community engagement.

Why this product is good

  • CodePen is a popular online code editor and community platform for front-end developers to experiment with creating and sharing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets. It provides an easy-to-use interface and real-time previews, making it a valuable tool for learning, prototyping, and sharing web development work. It also fosters a community where developers can showcase their projects, receive feedback, and learn from each other.

Recommended for

  • Front-end developers who want to quickly prototype and test web designs.
  • Beginners in web development looking to learn and receive feedback from the community.
  • Educators and students interested in a platform to showcase projects and collaborate.
  • Developers who want to explore creative coding and share their work with a community.

CodePen videos

What Is Codepen?

More videos:

  • Review - Learn to use CodePen from a co-founder of CodePen
  • Review - Using CodePen For Inspiration & Learning

JS Bin videos

JS Bin saving - a quick explanation

More videos:

  • Review - Customising JS Bin's editor
  • Review - JS Bin - shortcut urls

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CodePen and JS Bin)
Text Editors
90 90%
10% 10
Programming
82 82%
18% 18
Software Development
100 100%
0% 0
Programming Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using CodePen and JS Bin. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare CodePen and JS Bin

CodePen Reviews

Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2025
Codepen is a social network for developers to show off their work, ask and answer questions, and exchange ideas. It's like a Reddit for coding and design, with a large community of talented web developers.
Source: www.notchup.com
Top 10 Developer Communities You Should Explore
Codepen is a social development environment that allows developers to showcase their work and experiment with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a collaborative space. Codepen’s focus on visual and interactive development makes it an excellent community for front-end developers and designers.
Source: www.qodo.ai
8 Best Replit Alternatives & Competitors in 2022 (Free & Paid) - Software Discover
Codepen is a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. Build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases to learn.
Best Online Code Editors For Web Developers
Probably the most popular online code editor. CodePen is fast, easy to use, and allows a web developer to write and share HTML/CSS/JS code online.
Source: techarge.in
Top 25 websites for coding challenge and competition [Updated for 2021]
CodePen is a cool online IDE that allows you to write code in your browser and see the result just as you build it. CodePen challenges is a place for leveling up your skills by building things. Each week, new challenges appear for you to tackle, and the best “Pens” get picked.

JS Bin Reviews

8 Best Replit Alternatives & Competitors in 2022 (Free & Paid) - Software Discover
A live pastebin for HTML, CSS & javascript and a range of processors, including scss, coffeescript, jade and more. JS bin – collaborative javascript debugging.
6 Coding Playgrounds For Web Developers
What sets it apart from the previous playgrounds is that JS Bin allows you to download files to your computer, a nifty feature that may prove useful to developers, especially when fiddling around with code while offline. You can also create private “bins” on JS Bin but you will have to pay for this feature. Unfortunately, at this point, JS Bin doesn’t have a collaboration...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CodePen seems to be a lot more popular than JS Bin. While we know about 503 links to CodePen, we've tracked only 25 mentions of JS Bin. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CodePen mentions (503)

View more

JS Bin mentions (25)

  • Ask HN: How can I get my 7-year-old started with web development?
    I don't understand why all these comments are against web dev. Creating an html file is quick, easy, and most importantly for kids, you instantly get visual results! You don't even need to open ugly terminal consoles, you could just use something like JS Bin (https://jsbin.com/) or JSFiddle or CodePen. I used to volunteer with CoderDojo, a non-profit that hosted intro to coding workshops for kids of all ages... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    JS Bin: Allows you to save edited code locally or share a URL for collaborative debugging. Supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Markdown, Jade, and Sass. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Jsbin.com — JS Bin is another playground and code-sharing site of front-end web (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It Also supports Markdown, Jade, and Sass). - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • 10 best Javascript debugging tools
    JS Bin is one of the useful JavaScript debugging tools designed for developers working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It gives them the opportunity to test and debug their code snippets in a real-world setting. The fact that this tool is open-source is fantastic. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • <code> + linebreak breaks code segment. <code> without linebreak doesn't.
    If I paste both in jsbin.com, the both show all content on 1 line. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing CodePen and JS Bin, you can also consider the following products

JSFiddle - Test your JavaScript, CSS, HTML or CoffeeScript online with JSFiddle code editor.

CodeSandbox - Online playground for React

Pastebin.com - Pastebin.com is a website where you can store text for a certain period of time.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

replit - Code, create, andlearn together. Use our free, collaborative, in-browser IDE to code in 50+ languages — without spending a second on setup.

JSitor - Test your NodeJS, JavaScript, CSS, HTML online with JSitor code editor.