Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Light up code in text editor as it executes

What if when you ran code, the relevant lines lit up in your text editor? - steobrien/light-up-running-code

This developer tool highlights code in a text editor in real-time as it executes, allowing programmers to visually follow program flow during debugging or learning. Available on GitHub, it works with text editors to… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Light up code in text editor as it executes launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   Nightlight, an editor that runs inside Clojure projects▲195

   An embedded editor for Clojure. Contribute to oakes/Nightlight development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

2. 2
   A VSCode Extension to edit HTML visually in real-time▲231

   Edit HTML files visually. Contribute to urin/vscode-web-visual-editor development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   CodeEdit▲157

   Elevate your code editing experience

   2024 · codeedit.app · its alternatives →

4. 4
   An open source performance monitoring tool▲135

   Hey HN. We’re Jay and Vadim from Highlight.io (https://highlight.io). We’re building an open source [1] monitoring platform for web applications. Today we’re excited to be sharing a performance tool we’ve been working on, which helps you inspect the latency of code execution from the client to the server. As engineers at past startups, we often had to debug slow queries, poor load times, inconsistent errors, etc... While tools like Jaegar [2] helped us inspect server-side performance, we had no way to tie user events to the traces we were inspecting. In other words, although we had…

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   We’re open-sourcing our session replay tool▲408

   Hey HN! We’re open-sourcing highlight.io (https://github.com/highlight/highlight), a session replay and error monitoring tool. Highlight.io gives you a high-precision video-like replay of what users are doing when an error or exception occurs in your web app, along with a full-fledged error monitoring experience (similar to bugsnag, rollbar, etc..). The main value prop of highlight.io is that we help you understand the full context surrounding an error and allow you to drill down to the code path that a user invoked (i.e user clicked button X, sent network request Y, and…

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

6. 6
   CodeSwing – A CodePen-like interactive playground, built into VS Code▲159

   VS Code extension for building web applications ("swings") using a interactive and editor-integrated coding environment - lostintangent/codeswing

   2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Code Hike – More than syntax highlighting▲118

   Use Markdown and React to build rich content websites. Documentation, tutorials, blogs, videos, interactive walkthroughs, and more.

   2021 · codehike.org · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Sketch Syntax Highlighter▲195

   Highlight the syntax of any code snippet in Sketch

   2017 · danielguillan.github.io · its alternatives →

9. 9MT
   My time tracking tool for your text editor▲126

   2013 · wakati.me · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Paper Programs – Run JavaScript on pieces of paper▲235

    Run Javascript programs on pieces of paper, using a projector and camera. Physically hold programs in your hand, and see them come to life, as if by magic.

    2018 · paperprograms.org · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Ecode – A minimalist and fast open-source code editor▲233

    Hi HN! I've been working on a code editor and I think that it's mature enough to catch some interest. It's using a custom GPU accelerated GUI written in C++. Currently implements some interesting features: LSP, terminal, auto-completion, linters, formatters, custom keybindings, plugins and more. It's a hobby project but still intends to be an alternative to other popular code editors like Sublime, Kate, Lapce, Lite XL (and takes inspiration from them). The project was born as a playground for the GUI I'm developing (eepp GUI) and is advanced enough to currently be my main code editor, but…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

12. 12SE
    Sunflower Editor – like adding console.log to every line of your code▲134

    2021 · editor.sunflower.industries · its alternatives →

13. 13AC
    “Active Code” in Markdown▲36

    2014 · chriswarbo.net · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Code Snippets AI▲230

    Generate, refactor & debug with GPT-4. All inside VSCode

    2023 · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Lightrun Observability Platform▲63

    Dynamically instrument Live applications from your IDE

    2023 · lightrun.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    I built a tool to un-dumb Claude Code's CLI output (Local Log Viewer)▲69

    Hi HN, I built this because I got tired of the Claude Code CLI hiding details from me. Recent updates have replaced critical output with summaries like "Read 3 files" or "Edited 2 files". To see what actually happened, I was forced to use `--verbose`, which floods the terminal with unreadable JSON and system prompts. I wanted a middle ground: *Full observability without the noise.* `claude-devtools` is a local Electron app that tails the session logs in `~/.claude/` to reconstruct the execution trace in real-time. *Unlike wrappers, it solves the visibility gap in your native…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

17. 17
    claude-devtools▲144

    See everything Claude Code hides from your terminal

    Feb 2026 · claude-dev.tools · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Quick Preview▲113

    Copy/paste and test your HTML code in real-time.

    2024 · quickpreview.dev · its alternatives →

19. 19
    FlowLens▲134

    Hi HN, We often run into this with coding agents like Claude Code: debugging turns into copy-pasting logs, writing long explanations, and sharing screenshots. FlowLens is an MCP server plus a Chrome extension that captures browser context (video, console, network, user actions, storage) and makes it available to MCP-compatible agents like Claude Code. You can try it here: https://magentic.ai/flowlens Any feedback—good, bad, or brutal—is welcome.

    Dec 2025 · magentic.ai · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Smart Text Editor▲94

    The text editor that requires only a browser and a keyboard

    2021 · stedit.app · its alternatives →

21. 21
    LightLayer▲94

    Hey HN. We're Mus and Isaac - creators of LightLayer. We've been outputting a ton more code since using agentic dev tools. It's been great. But we're starting to see a new bottleneck emerge that's no longer writing the actual code: reviewing code. We’d love to hear from folks here if they’re feeling the inertia of code reviews a lot more these days with the surge in development velocity. For us, it was the reason we decided to pivot what we were working on before, and go full-time on building a workspace aimed at bringing the code review experience up to speed for the AI era. To be clear:…

    2025 · lightlayer.dev · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Expect▲109

    Let agents test your code in a real browser

    Mar 2026 · expect.dev · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Debugger that generates video visualizations for algorithm learning▲102

    A simple Python debugger and profiler that generates animated visualizations of program flow, useful for algorithm learning. - CCExtractor/vardbg

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Lit – a modern literate programming tool▲95

    A modern tool for literate programming. Contribute to cdosborn/lit development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →