If all you want is to experiment without cluttering you local system, then the nix package manager is probably a better idea that self-hosting a web based IDE. It can be installed on any Linux (or Mac) and once installed works without extra privileges. As nix isolates all dependencies by design, it can be used to create pristine, project specific dev environments without impacting or relying on the rest of the system.

There are plenty of blog posts out there explaining the concepts and how to get started, eg. https://monospacedmonologues.com/2022/06/throwaway-development-environments-with-nix/

Something like this?

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/vscode-server

https://hub.docker.com/r/ahmadnassri/vscode-server/#!

You can try it on github for free using the "." Key of your hardware keyboard in any git to open it in a Microsoft hosted web instance of VS code. Works even on iPad.

Edit: Oh dear, i guess you meant this by „code server“ sorry did not read to the end/and the beginning not properly, lol.

You're looking for Coder.

You can even set up your DE with the bits required to build your apps.

Couldn't you just use a container or a VM with ssh?

Another alternative approach could be Distrobox, where you can set up isolated environments for your specific needs.

I’m not sure if any of this information is useful, code-server doesn’t support installing the Remote-SSH extension. There are alternative methods to connect to environments, I personally think Remote-SSH is ideal.

https://github.com/coder/code-server/discussions/4462

sshfs and mount the remote fs locally. then you can use any editor/IDE you like.

https://www.atheos.io/

Might be worth a look.