Hey Sumo-lings,

Two things landing together.

First, installable apps are live in Cloudpen. Flip one switch in the new Mobile App panel and your deployed site can be installed on a phone like a real app, with its own icon, its own name, and no browser bar. It’s added to your live site automatically every time you deploy.

What you get:

• One toggle: “Make my site installable”

• Your own app name, short name, theme color and background color

• Window style: App, Fullscreen or Minimal

• Pick any image from your project as the app icon, or get a generated letter icon if you skip it

• A phone preview with a launch screen, so you can see how it looks before anyone installs it

• Offline fallback, so visitors still see your site when their connection drops

How people install it: on Android (Chrome), open your site, tap the menu, then “Install app”. On iPhone (Safari), tap Share, then “Add to Home Screen”.

One thing worth being clear on: this works for frontend sites (static and single-page apps). Backend and fullstack deployments aren’t covered yet, and if your site already ships its own web manifest, Cloudpen leaves it untouched. This makes your site installable, but it is not a path to the app stores.

Second, to celebrate, we’re running a launch promo: 20% off all tiers, starting Sunday, Oct 11 through Oct 31. The discount comes off the current deal price, so it applies to every tier:

If you’ve been waiting for a reason to jump in, or you’re on a lower tier and eyeing more room, this is the window.

Try it from your project dashboard, or check the full changelog here:
https://cloudpen.dev/changelog

Thanks for building with us so far. More soon.

Augustine
Founder, Cloudpen

Hey Sumo-lings,

Two things landing together today.

First, Tier 4 is now live. A lot of you asked for more room at the top, more hosted databases, more custom domains, more of everything, and this is that tier. It includes more hosted databases, more custom domains, more backend/fullstack deployments, our highest Extension Testing limits, and Flutter Live Preview at its highest daily build cap. Full details are on the pricing page. If you're already on Tier 3 and outgrowing it, this is built for you.

Second, Flutter Live Preview is live alongside it, also included on Tier 4. Build and preview your Flutter app in a real session, right from the editor, no local Flutter SDK, no emulator, no Xcode or Android Studio setup. One thing worth being clear on: this is a live preview session, not a permanent deployment and not a path to the app stores. It's for fast iteration, see your UI running exactly like it would on a phone, make a change, redeploy, and check again. Previews stay alive while you're actively working and expire automatically after a period of inactivity.

What you get with Flutter Live Preview:

• A live, shareable preview session for your Flutter Web build

• No local SDK, emulator, or IDE setup required

• Every redeploy refreshes the session automatically

• Available starting on Tier 2

Both of these came directly out of buyer feedback and Q&A threads, so thank you to everyone who kept asking. It genuinely shapes what gets built next.

Next on our roadmap: a QR code alongside the Flutter preview, so you can scan it and check your app straight from your phone, no cable, no separate setup. More details soon.

Try it from your project dashboard, or check the full changelog here: https://cloudpen.dev/changelog

Thanks for building with us so far. More soon.

Augustine
Founder, Cloudpen

Hey Sumo-lings,

Cloudpen now supports Web3. You can write a Solidity smart contract, compile it, and deploy it to a live testnet, all inside the browser, with no separate setup.

Normally, getting to that point means two credentials: an RPC URL from a provider like Alchemy or Infura, and your wallet's private key. Signing up for an RPC provider alone is a real barrier if you've never done it before, and it has nothing to do with the contract you actually want to write.

So we built it with both options from day one. Bring your own RPC key if you have one, or skip that step entirely: Cloudpen runs its own shared RPC pool for Sepolia that your project falls back to automatically. Either way, your wallet's PRIVATE_KEY stays yours. We never touch it, never share it.

What you get:

• Write a Solidity contract, hit Deploy, done. One credential (your wallet) if you use the shared pool, or your own RPC setup if you prefer.

• Scoped to Sepolia testnet only, so no real money is ever at risk.

• Ready made templates to start from: Hardhat Starter, ERC 20 Token, and NFT Contract, all pre wired with OpenZeppelin and a working deploy script.

Next on our roadmap: expanding this template set with more Web3 starters, the same way you already fork any other project template today.

Go compile and deploy your first ERC-20, or fork one of the templates and ship something in the next ten minutes.

Try it here: https://cloudpen.dev/docs#deploy-overview
Everything else we've shipped recently: https://cloudpen.dev/changelog

Thanks for building with us so far. More soon.

Augustine
Founder, Cloudpen

Hey Sumo-lings,

It's September 1st, and before anything else, this one's for you. A small gift for the new month: a reminder that even the best code needs a moment to breathe, and that we built this because we care about you, not just your deploys.

Here's what's new: Cloudpen now has an Arcade, available on every plan. It's a tab on your dashboard, no scores tracked, no pressure, just a place to step away from the terminal for a few minutes when a bug's got you stuck or you just need five quiet minutes between builds.

What's in it:

• Night Run: a neon 3D racer built with Three.js. Drift through corners to fill your nitro, then unleash it on the straights.

• Neon Siege: a top down twin stick shooter with waves, bosses, and a dash mechanic.

• Chess: a full engine we built from scratch: legal move validation, castling, en passant, promotion, adjustable AI difficulty, hints, save/load, even clocks. Play the bot or pass and play with a friend.

• Typing Sprint, Word Rush, Speed Math, etc.: quick, low stakes games for the in between moments.

And this isn't a one off drop. The Arcade will keep getting maintained, improved, and updated regularly, and we'll be adding new games as time goes on.

We know most of you didn't come to Cloudpen for games. You came to ship. But burnout is real, and a five minute break that doesn't pull you out of your workspace is worth more than it sounds like on paper. Consider this our way of saying: take the break, we've got you.

Try it here: https://cloudpen.dev/arcade

Everything else we've shipped recently: https://cloudpen.dev/changelog

Happy September. Go easy on yourself this month.

Thanks for building with us so far. More soon.

Augustine
Founder, Cloudpen

Hey Sumo-lings,

A few weeks ago we mentioned something big was coming. Today it's live.

Cloudpen now deploys real backend apps, Laravel, PHP, with a hosted MySQL database to match, right from inside the browser. As far as we can tell, Cloudpen is the first browser-based cloud IDE to ship one-click fullstack deployment paired with a built-in hosted database and phpMyAdmin access, all without leaving the editor. This has been the single most requested feature since launch, and it's now real.

What you get:

- Write a Laravel/PHP app in Cloudpen, hit deploy, and it's live at yourproject.cloudpen.dev, a real persistent backend, not a static preview.

- Provision a hosted MySQL database per project, with full phpMyAdmin access, same convenience as cPanel, but built into your editor.

- Deploy a backend for the same project and your database credentials are wired into your app automatically, no manual .env setup.

Want to see it running before you try it yourself? We built and deployed a full Laravel app entirely inside Cloudpen. Backend deployment and hosted database are both live on it right now: https://blog-project.cloudpen.dev/. Fork it, poke around, break it, see exactly how the pieces fit together.

One thing still on the roadmap: connecting to your hosted database from an app hosted outside Cloudpen isn't live yet. For now, it's fully wired up for anything you deploy on Cloudpen itself. External connections are coming.

Availability varies by tier. Check your Billing page for your exact deployment and database allowance, or the full breakdown in the docs below.

Full docs on how it all works: https://cloudpen.dev/docs

Everything else we've shipped recently: https://cloudpen.dev/changelog

This one's been months in the making. Would love to hear what you build with it, reply here or drop it in the Cloudpen community.

Thanks for building with us so far. More soon.

Augustine

Founder, Cloudpen