Question 1

What is px0?

Accepted Answer

px0 is a fast, ultra-light, remote-first, read-only IDE designed for instant code navigation and review in your browser. It boots in under 1 millisecond and uses approximately 20 MB of RAM, turning your browser into a zero-latency code inspection console.

Question 2

Can px0 be used to inspect code on remote servers and cloud VMs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. px0 is remote-first. You can run `px0 -host 0.0.0.0` on any remote server, VM, CI runner, or container and browse the codebase directly from your local web browser over HTTP or TLS, without configuring SSH keys, setting up port-forwarding tunnels, or running heavy server daemons.

Question 3

Why use a read-only IDE instead of a full editor like VS Code?

Accepted Answer

Code increasingly arrives from the terminal via AI coding agents, compilers, or remote test runners. Developers spend most of their time in verification, audit, and navigation. Full desktop IDEs take seconds to boot and consume 1.4+ GB of RAM just to read files. px0 starts in under 1 ms with ~20 MB RAM, providing zero-latency code reading without editor bloat.

Question 4

Does px0 require language servers to work?

Accepted Answer

No. Language servers are completely optional. px0 automatically detects servers like gopls, rust-analyzer, or clangd on your PATH if present, but falls back instantly to a built-in regex-based outline and fuzzy search if no server is installed.

Question 5

How does px0 handle large repositories?

Accepted Answer

px0 uses windowed syntax highlighting and virtual DOM rendering (only rendering visible rows on screen), so opening a 400,000-line file costs the same as a 10-line file. It fuzzy-finds across the Linux kernel (95,710 files) in 6 ms.

Question 6

How do I install px0?

Accepted Answer

Run `curl -fsSL https://px0.ai/install.sh | sh` on macOS, Linux, or BSD. Prebuilt binaries for 15 OS and architecture targets are also available on GitHub Releases.

Question 7

How do I avoid sudo prompts when installing or updating px0?

Accepted Answer

If px0 was previously installed with sudo, remove the active root-owned binary and reinstall cleanly to user space (~/.local/bin) by running: `sudo rm -f "$(which px0)" && curl -fsSL https://px0.ai/install.sh | sh`. All future updates will then run in user space with zero sudo requirements.

Question 8

Does px0 collect telemetry or send code to the cloud?

Accepted Answer

No. px0 never transmits code, file paths, symbol names, or search queries. It collects lightweight, anonymous backend session metrics (start and stop times) strictly to measure daily active users and session duration. You can disable telemetry completely with `px0 -no-telemetry`, `DO_NOT_TRACK=1`, or `PX0_TELEMETRY=0`.

Blog & Insights

IDEs are dead, long live the IDE