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CodePen VS Web.dev by Google

Compare CodePen VS Web.dev by Google and see what are their differences

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CodePen logo CodePen

A front end web development playground.

Web.dev by Google logo Web.dev by Google

Learn how to build for the web and see where you stand 🌟
  • CodePen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30
  • Web.dev by Google Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-20

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.

Web.dev by Google features and specs

  • Comprehensive Guides
    Web.dev offers an extensive range of articles and tutorials that cover various aspects of web development, from performance optimization to accessibility improvements.
  • Lighthouse Integration
    The site integrates with Lighthouse, an open-source tool that audits web pages for performance, accessibility, SEO, and more, providing actionable insights.
  • Regular Updates
    Content is consistently updated to align with the latest web standards and practices, ensuring developers get current and relevant information.
  • Interactive Learning
    Offers interactive assessments and code labs that allow developers to practice and implement what they have learned in a hands-on manner.
  • Expert Contributors
    Content on Web.dev is often contributed by industry experts and Google engineers, ensuring a high level of credibility and insight.

Possible disadvantages of Web.dev by Google

  • Google-Centric
    While the information is high-quality, it often reflects Google's specific views and technologies, which may not always align with other standards or practices.
  • Overwhelming for Beginners
    The sheer amount of information can be overwhelming for novice developers who may not know where to start.
  • Performance Over Focus
    The strong emphasis on performance might sometimes underplay other critical aspects such as backend development or advanced JavaScript frameworks.
  • Tool Dependence
    Heavy reliance on tools like Lighthouse could lead developers to become dependent on these tools rather than understanding the underlying principles.
  • Surface-Level Coverage
    Some topics may receive only surface-level coverage, leaving those seeking in-depth knowledge to look elsewhere.

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.

Analysis of Web.dev by Google

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Web.dev by Google is highly regarded for its thorough and actionable resources designed to enhance web development practices. It's considered a valuable tool for developers aiming to build fast, reliable, and accessible web applications.

Why this product is good

  • Web.dev by Google provides comprehensive resources and tools to help developers improve the performance, accessibility, and best practices of their web applications. It offers up-to-date documentation, practical guides, and actionable insights that are aligned with industry standards. The platform is developed by Google, a leader in web technology, ensuring that the information is credible and relevant. Web.dev also includes tools like Lighthouse for site audits, enabling developers to optimize their web platforms effectively.

Recommended for

    Web.dev is recommended for web developers, designers, and SEO professionals looking to improve their website's performance, accessibility, and compliance with best practices. It's also useful for educators and students in web development programs who need a reliable source of information and tools for learning and teaching modern web technologies.

CodePen videos

+ Add

What Is Codepen?

More videos:

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

Web.dev by Google videos

No Web.dev by Google videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CodePen and Web.dev by Google)

CodePen

Web.dev by Google

Text Editors
100 100%
Text Editors
0% 0
Online Services
0 0%
Online Services
100% 100
Programming
100 100%
Programming
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
Developer Tools
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using CodePen and Web.dev by Google. 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 Web.dev by Google

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.
Source: www.softwarediscover.com
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.
Source: towardsdatascience.com

Web.dev by Google Reviews

We have no reviews of Web.dev by Google yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CodePen should be more popular than Web.dev by Google. It has been mentiond 503 times since March 2021. 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

Web.dev by Google mentions (130)

  • Eating the toast
    Toast is a fairly common component which is often used to display a message or sometimes feedback of an action on the screen. A more formal definition by https://web.dev state is this way:. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Understanding the Critical Render Path and Its Role in Web Performance
    Here is a sample video clip of FOUC taken from web.dev where you can see the page without any styling and all styles are applied once the page's CSS has finished loading from the network. Example of FOUC. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • A Comprehensive Guide to Web Vitals: Metrics That Matter for Performance
    In this article, we have learned about What are Web Vitals, Core Web Vitals and how these matrices are used to measure web performance. To learn more about them check out the web.dev performance section here. If you like this blog and you want to learn more about Frontend Development and Software Engineering you can follow me on Dev.to. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Is Chrome the New IE?
    Another piece of evidence is Google tries at nearly every turn to help people write portable code, use best practices like feature detection instead of browser version sniffing, etc... They run https://web.dev/ and the founded baseline https://web.dev/baseline and the web platform dashboard https://web.dev/blog/web-platform-dashboard MS in their IE days did the exact opposite, trying to make as many proprietary IE... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Old Dogs, New CSS Tricks
    It may be ran by Google, but https://web.dev/ is one good source for keeping up with new web technologies. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing CodePen and Web.dev by Google, you can also consider the following products

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

cutestat - Website Stats and Valuation. CuteStat.

CodeSandbox - Online playground for React

Rankchart - Rankchart is one of the unique websites that allows you to examine your websites or watch competitors and locate rich information about website technologies, site reputation, errors, SEO, and ad-word recommendations.

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.

WebsiteOutlook - WebsiteOutlook is an all-in-one website that provides you detailed information on famous websites based on various data sources like traffic, page rank, and estimated ad revenue.

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