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CodeRunner

Run snippets in about 25 languages without making a project

Price: $22.99 once

PerpetualUpdates included, forever

Buy direct WebsiteApp Store

Price read on coderunnerapp.com, the page Buy direct opens.

The catch

Company or institution machines need the $15-per-computer site licence, minimum five

The full picture

The developer's licence policy says free future upgrades are included with all licences, so there is no known paid-upgrade cliff — but that is a policy statement from a one-person shop, not a contractual term. Work machines belonging to an employer fall under the Site License, not the $22.99 personal one. No trial terms are published anywhere on the site: the download link hands over the app directly, so assume unlicensed use is feature-limited rather than a defined trial period.

Pays back in
1 month
Seats
No Mac count statedNo number is published. The Personal License is "for individual use. Can be used on computers that the license holder owns personally." Employer-owned machines fall under the Site License instead, minimum five.
Developer account
None needed
Buy once$22.99Rent 5 years$1,080

$1,057 kept over five years, and you still have the app.
Against Replit Core at $216 a year, Core plan at $18 per month on annual billing. Also replaces JetBrains IDE subscriptions kept only for scratch files.

What it looks like

CodeRunner: The complete CodeRunner 4 window with permute.py open and paused at a breakpoint: language picker and Run/Stop/Run Settings toolbar, document tab bar, file sidebar, syntax-highlighted editor, the documentation sidebar showing Python's print() docs, and the debug drawer with call stack, variable inspector and console output. No marketing text. 2000x1250 (upsized from Apple's 800x500 default; verified 2.1 MB PNG).
The complete CodeRunner 4 window with permute.py open and paused at a breakpoint. Mac App Store (id955297617, screenshotUrls)
CodeRunner: A tight crop of the same debugging session — editor stopped at a breakpoint, stack frames, variable inspector with expanded result array, live console, and the status bar (Paused, CPU, Memory, line/column). Clean window, no overlaid copy. 1440x896.
A tight crop of the same debugging session — editor stopped at a breakpoint, stack frames, variable inspector with expanded result array, live console, and the status bar (Paused, CPU, Memory, line/column). Vendor site (coderunnerapp.com)
CodeRunner: The Preferences > Languages pane in front of the main window: the full supported-language list (AppleScript through TypeScript) with per-language run command, file extensions, syntax mode, console type, debugger and indentation settings. Carries an 'Easily add your own languages' caption in the top right. 2000x1250.
The Preferences > Languages pane in front of the main window. Mac App Store (id955297617)
CodeRunner App Store screenshot 1 of 3
CodeRunner App Store screenshot 2 of 3
CodeRunner App Store screenshot 3 of 3

3 screenshots published by the developer on the Mac App Store.

Images belong to their developers.

What you’re buying

Most days you do not want a project, a workspace or a language server. You want to see whether that regex behaves, whether the sort is stable, whether the interview question compiles. CodeRunner is the app for that gap: one document, a language picker in the corner, a console below, and a debugger with breakpoints when the print statements stop being enough.

It is not a toolchain manager. It runs Python with your Python, Go with your Go, Swift with the Swift in your Xcode install. That is the reason it opens instantly and the reason it will fail loudly if the language you picked is not on the machine.

The $22.99 buys a personal licence and, per the developer's own licence page, every future version. That is a stronger promise than most of the editors on this site make, and it is worth knowing the boundary: the licence covers computers you personally own. A laptop your employer bought falls under the site licence at $15 per machine, with a five-machine minimum, which makes CodeRunner an awkward buy for a single person at a company.

Skip it if you already live in a full IDE, or if your scratch work is all one language — a terminal and a main.py costs nothing and does the same job.

What owners report

Points that recur across the discussions below. A report of what users say, not our verdict: we don’t review software.

Praised

  • It opens instantly and copes with very large files, which is why people keep it for quick edits and one-off runs

Criticised

  • On launch it asks to own a long list of file types and keeps reclaiming .txt and .csv afterwards, which several users struggle to stop
  • Treated as a main editor it disappoints — long-time users call it a scratchpad, and reviewers ask for code folding and a less dated interface

Details

The price in full

$22.99 Personal License from the developer, for individual use on computers the licence holder owns personally; the licence policy states that free future upgrades are included with all licences. A Site License for company or institution machines is $15 per computer with a 5-computer minimum. The same $22.99 price applies on the Mac App Store with no in-app purchases, and Mac App Store buyers can request a key for the direct-download build. Also included in a Setapp subscription.

The CodeRunner page at coderunnerapp.com
The developer’s own page. coderunnerapp.com, captured 22 Sep 2026
Free trial
No
Works offline
Yes
Apple Silicon
Native
On Setapp
Yes
Minimum macOS
not stated
Developer
Nikolai Krill

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