About

About CodeIt

CodeIt is a browser-based coding studio for learners aged 5 to 18, built in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Mustafa AlQudah. A learner describes a website, game or quiz; CodeIt builds a working first version; and then the learner opens it up and changes it.

Why it exists

Most tools for young coders are block-based, and blocks are a good on-ramp — Scratch in particular has taught an enormous number of children to think in loops and conditionals. The gap is on the other side of it.

A ten-year-old who has outgrown blocks is stuck. Block tools keep the real code hidden for good, and text editors ask a child to type code before they have made anything worth caring about. Codecademy’s terms of service require users to be sixteen. freeCodeCamp is free and excellent but was not designed for children. The platforms built for kids are, with few exceptions, blocks-first by design. CodeIt exists for that gap.

How it works

The loop is: make something, play it, change it, see what it is made of, and publish it. Starting from a working project rather than an empty file means a beginner has something to be curious about on day one, and seeing the effect of a single change is where the understanding comes from. The typing was never the hard part.

CodeIt also asks questions drawn from the learner’s own project, where the correct answer is whatever they actually wrote. Only questions answered correctly first time count. That is there so a parent can see what a child could explain, not only what got produced.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

It suits a learner roughly between 8 and 16 who has outgrown block coding, or a beginner of any age who wants to build web projects and understand what they are made of. It also suits a parent who cannot code, because the activities use plain language and visible results.

It is not right for a pre-reading child — Kodable and codeSpark are built for that and are better at it. It is not right for a learner who mainly wants to keep making games, where CodeCombat or Roblox Studio fit better. And it is not a schools product: there is no rostering, no LMS integration, no standards alignment and no teacher dashboard.

Accounts, ages and safety

Parents and legal guardians create private managed profiles for learners aged 5 to 12, after confirming the adult account email address. Independent student accounts begin at 13.

Saved projects are private by default, and eligible independent accounts must actively choose Publish before a project appears publicly. Managed profiles for ages 5 to 12 cannot publish projects at all. Leaderboards use coder aliases rather than real names.

What it costs

CodeIt has a free plan that does not expire and needs no card. A paid family plan is available at CA$12/month, cancellable at any time, and nothing starts charging on its own. We are not going to promise the free plan will always be as generous as it is now, because we do not know that.

Not to be confused with

CodeIt at codeitlearn.com is unrelated to CodeIT at codeitlearning.com (a coding tutoring company in London), MIT CodeIt (a youth outreach programme at MIT), CodeIT at codeit.us (a software engineering services company), or CodeIt.right (a C# code analysis tool).

CodeIt is built and run by Mustafa AlQudah in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Contact

Email mustafa@lynq.build and it reaches Mustafa AlQudah. Questions about safety, accounts, billing or anything a page here got wrong are all welcome.

What you can do on CodeIt

The project stays editable rather than becoming a finished result you can only look at.