Today we made a big update to how we name things on Replit. What we previously called “Repls” are now “Replit Apps”, or just “Apps” for short. It’s a better description of what users are building on Replit today, and more in line with how we name things.
REPLs are something we’ve always been a fan of at Replit. The read-eval-print-loop is one of the fastest and most intuitive ways to understand programming, try ideas, and get feedback. Those are all values we try to instill in the product to this day.
The name Repl on Replit goes way back, even further than the company itself. When Amjad first launched a project to make coding in the browser easier, it was called JSREPL because it gave you a JavaScript REPL right in the browser. No installing tools, just write code.
JSREPL original website
When Replit launched in 2016, user creations were called Repls. That was an homage to the original REPL as conceived by Computer Science pioneers L. Peter Deutsch and Edmund Berkeley. But it was also a good description of what Replit did. The core product experience was based on two panes: one for typing in code and one for seeing the output.
Replit in 2016
Fast forward to today, and Replit does so much more. You build full applications with AI, provision databases, integrate services, deploy apps, monitor user traffic, and grow your business. A better name for what you’re building are Replit Apps.
Replit in 2025
Happy building.
