Running Claude Code on a VPS for the first time

Today I tried Claude Code for the first time, and immediately ran it on a Hetzner VPS instead of my local machine.

The setup is simple: I have a VPS on Hetzner, connect to it from my MacBook using VS Code Remote (SSH), and run everything — including Claude Code — directly on the server. From my side it feels completely local. I open a folder, the terminal is on the VPS, the file system is on the VPS, and Claude Code runs on the VPS.

The main reason I went this route is that AI coding assistants can be heavy. Claude Code spins up processes, watches files, and runs commands constantly. Doing all of that on a laptop means fan noise, battery drain, and thermal throttling during a long session. Offloading it to a VPS means my MacBook stays cool and quiet — it's just rendering a text editor and an SSH connection.

The experience was surprisingly seamless. VS Code Remote handled everything transparently. I opened the project folder over SSH, started Claude Code in the integrated terminal, and it just worked. No special configuration, no tunneling tricks.

A few things I noticed:

• Latency is negligible for this kind of work. You're not streaming video — you're editing files and reading output.
• The VPS keeps running if I close my laptop. I can pick up exactly where I left off.
• Claude Code feels snappy because the server has consistent CPU and memory, not whatever my laptop has left after Chrome and Slack.

It's a small shift in workflow but it makes a real difference. I'll keep running it this way.