A few days ago, I tweeted that something new and exciting was coming from Ionic:

Super close to releasing a new tool we think Ionic devs are *really* going to dig. Keep an eye out… — Ben Sperry (@benjsperry) May 3, 2015

This is not that thing. You’ll have to stay tuned for that!

Instead, I am excited to share the Ionic Playground, a fun new tool that makes it incredibly easy to build Ionic apps and demos in the browser, without having to install anything. To use it, just visit play.ionic.io.



The Ionic Playground has a simple HTML, CSS, and Javascript editor with a live app preview that updates immediately with new changes. You can preview the mobile version of the app, share your work with anyone in the world, and fork other apps to add your own personal touch.

Try out the Live demo of the app shown above!

Mobile development made easy

One of the biggest challenges in using Ionic and other mobile development tools today is getting all the dependencies installed for mobile development. You need Node.js, Cordova, the Ionic CLI, platform tools for Android and iOS, developer accounts for each platform, etc.

Yet, we think one of the biggest advantages of web-based mobile technologies like Ionic is the ability to offer rapid app development right in the browser, without having to install a thing. The Playground finally takes advantage of that potential.

My hope is that the Playground will be widely used for education. We are starting to see Ionic being used to train the next generation of mobile developers, and tweets like this continue to blow my mind:

Teaching how to create amazing apps with @Ionicframework to IFAL students. #ionicadventures pic.twitter.com/50FG792gsL — Juarez Filho (@juarezpaf) May 5, 2015

The Playground will make an awesome tool for teaching people to build mobile apps without having to worry about all the difficulties of actually building, testing, and deploying on a device (not to mention registering and configuring iOS/Android developer accounts!). Plus, students can work alongside a teacher, and immediately see the impact of their work, which is incredibly rewarding!

Beyond education, the Playground will make it easy to demonstrate issues in Ionic for development purposes, quickly build prototypes and demos, and try out new designs.

Next steps

We have a lot of ideas for the Playground, including adding snippets for common Ionic components, starting real device projects from a demo, and integration with the View app. Please let us know what you think about the Playground today and if you have any crazy ideas on how to make it even better!

Open the Ionic Playground!