I was tired of 50+ open tabs, so I built a widget based workspace with a built in IDE

baydd — Mon, 04 May 2026 22:03:20 +0000

Hi Dev.to community! 👋

As developers, we all know the "tab fatigue." Between documentation, Slack, Jira, music, and monitoring tools, our browsers often look like a graveyard of forgotten resources. Context switching is real, and it’s a productivity killer.

I decided to tackle this by building Mutliple.live
a customizable digital workspace canvas.

The Problem
Traditional bookmark bars or start pages are static. I wanted something living. A place where I could see my Kanban board, my music player, my notes, and my research tools all on one screen.

The Solution
Mutliple allows you to drag and drop widgets onto a canvas. But as I was building it, I realized one thing: I can't build every widget that every developer needs.

So, I built the Developer Studio.

Technical Challenge: A Secure Sandbox for React Widgets
The coolest part of the project is that users can actually write their own React/TSX widgets directly in the browser.

To make this work securely, I had to:

Integrate Monaco Editor for a VS Code-like experience.
Build a sanitized sandbox environment using srcDoc iframes and cross origin communication via postMessage.
Create an internal SDK so widgets can communicate with the platform (notifications, API calls, data storage).
Tech Stack
Frontend: React, Vite, TailwindCSS, Lucide Icons.
Backend: Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Socket.io.
State Management: Zustand (for that lightweight flow).
I need your feedback!
The project is currently in public beta and completely free. I’m looking for fellow devs to:

Try out the Developer Studio and see if the SDK makes sense.
Suggest what kind of "Dev Widgets" would make your life easier (e.g., Log viewers, API testers, etc.).
Check it out here: https://mutliple.live

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! What does your ideal workspace look like?

Forem: baydd

I was tired of 50+ open tabs, so I built a widget based workspace with a built in IDE