DevCollab is a real-time collaborative coding platform where multiple users can join a room, write code together, chat, and execute code securely inside Docker containers.
This project was built to explore real-time systems, containerized execution, and collaborative editors.
- 👨💻 Real-time collaborative code editing
- 💬 Built-in chat system for each room
- 🧠 Multi-language code execution (Python & JavaScript)
- 🔐 JWT authentication
- 📦 Docker sandbox for secure code execution
- 📂 Save and retrieve code snippets
- 👥 Active users list
- 🔗 Invite link to join rooms
- ⚡ Fast WebSocket synchronization using Socket.IO
- React
- Vite
- Monaco Editor
- Socket.IO Client
- Node.js
- Express
- Socket.IO
- MongoDB
- Docker
- Docker Compose
DevCollab uses a room-based architecture powered by Socket.IO.
- Users join a room.
- Code changes are emitted as WebSocket events.
- The server broadcasts updates to other users in the same room.
- Code execution requests are sent to the backend.
- The backend writes the code into a sandbox folder.
- Docker containers execute the code securely.
- Output is returned to the client.
Code execution is isolated using Docker containers:
docker run --rm -v sandbox:/sandbox node:18 node /sandbox/temp.js docker run --rm -v sandbox:/sandbox python:3.11 python /sandbox/temp.py
This prevents malicious code from affecting the host system.
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/devcollab.git
cd devcollab
Setup environment variables
Create .env inside backend:
JWT_SECRET=your_secret_key
SANDBOX_HOST_PATH=/path/to/sandbox
Run with Docker
docker compose up --build
App will run at:
Frontend: http://localhost:5173
Backend: http://localhost:5000
CRDT-based collaborative editing
Support for more programming languages
Persistent file storage
Cursor presence indicators
Scalable WebSocket architecture with Redis
Lohith M
Computer Science Engineering Student
Passionate about full-stack systems and developer tools.