Benjamin Kaiser

Quest 3 as a Standalone Web Development Machine

Benjamin Kaiser -

Recently, I jumped on the VR bandwagon and bought a Quest 3 headset. Naturally, as a web developer, I got curious: could this thing double as a lightweight dev machine—without relying on streaming from a laptop or desktop?

My theory was that using something like GitHub Codespaces (aka Visual Studio Code in a browser, running on a cloud server), I could write code, debug directly in the browser, and push changes, all from within the headset—effectively handling a full web development workflow entirely in VR.

So I dove in. Here’s a breakdown of the different approaches I tried and the limitations I ran into.

Fluid

Fluid is the go-to recommendation for opening multiple browser tabs in VR. It’s a native Quest app with a clean interface and decent multitasking support. But for web development, it fell short quickly:

  • No developer tools: There’s no way to open browser devtools, which is an instant dealbreaker for web development.
  • Keyboard limitations: Keyboard navigation is clunky, with common shortcuts (like focusing the address bar or switching tabs) either missing or unreliable.
  • Performance issues: Just a handful of browser tabs and a single YouTube video slowed the system enough to drop frames.

At the end of the day, trying to use an Android-based VR headset like a desktop computer is a bit of a stretch—and it shows.

Native Horizon OS + Android Browser Apps

Next, I tried sideloading Android browser apps (Brave, Mises, Lemur) directly onto the Quest and running them natively via Horizon OS.

Surprisingly, this setup was a much better keyboard experience:

  • Shortcuts worked great: Ctrl+L to focus the address bar, Ctrl+T to open new tabs, Ctrl+Tab to cycle through them. I even wrote this blog post from inside one of those browsers.
Blogging on the Quest 3

But again, the main roadblock was devtools. While these browsers technically support developer tools, there’s no way to open them in a separate window side-by-side with the page you’re debugging. That means constant tab switching, which quickly becomes tedious.

Another limitation: you're capped at 6 open windows total (3 docked, 3 floating). That really breaks the “unlimited monitors” dream that VR workspace fans tend to froth over.

Other VR Productivity Apps

There are a few other "productivity" apps on the Quest platform, but most of them are just streaming clients with extra bells and whistles:

  • Meta Horizon Workrooms (Beta) – Requires connection to an external computer.
  • Virtual Desktop – Great at what it does, but again, it’s just a fancy desktop streaming app.
  • Immersed – Well-polished, but also relies on streaming from a real computer.

If your goal is to leave the laptop behind entirely, these don't help.

Linux Chroot (a.k.a. UserLand) - Winner Winner!

Instead of relying on Android support for devtools, we can actually opt for running a full blown Linux desktop environment in a chroot+vnc. It takes a long time configuring, but the steps I took were:

#!/bin/sh
... leave other lines the same
# comment out this line
#/etc/X11/Xsession
# at the bottom of the file add
startxfce4 &
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium
  • To fix the resolution, edit ~/.vncrc to contain $geometry = "1920x1080" (or whatever resolution you want), then make the file not writable so it doesn't get overwritten by userland, do this with chmod -w ~/.vncrc
Real devtools running on the Quest 3! UserLand on the left, Termux on the right.

So a couple of notes on this approach:

  • Sadly the Chrome windows/devtools are stuck inside the VM and can't be treated as independent VR windows you could freely drag around in Horizon OS. Although this comes with the benefit of being able to run many of them while only taking up 1/6 of the available windows.
  • The networking is shared! In my screenshot I have an Android app (termux) running a simple node http-server, and it is accesibly inside Chromium on Linux. So you could leverage the native horizonOS + native Android apps approach above, and just use the VM for devtools/debugging.
  • There may be a heavier memory overhead running all this within a chroot + desktop environment. Maybe 500MB or so of RAM from eyeballing it, + all the RAM you'll chew up with a bunch of Chrome tabs.

So whilst it makes things possible, it does take away from magic of a "VR desktop" where all windows can be freely placed.

Conclusion

Right now, using the Quest 3 as a standalone device for web development is somewhat challenging. The biggest blockers are:

  • Lack of usable devtools except within Linux chroot
  • Limitations in keyboard navigation (depending on the app)
  • Performance issues with multitasking
  • A hard cap on open windows

That said, I still think the future is bright for this kind of setup. With improvements to both hardware and software—especially native apps designed with developers in mind—it might become viable in a year or two without resorting to setting up a full-blown linux environment.

Footnote

Yes, I know GitHub Codespaces technically is a remote computer—but it feels less “tethered” than streaming from your personal machine. You can spin one up from anywhere, pay by the hour, and it even comes with a decent free allowance (120 core-hours/month), which should be more than enough for light dev work in VR.