Antigravity online — web-surface access

When people search for antigravity online they usually mean one of two things: can I use the product without installing the desktop app, or can I access my runs and artifacts from a machine that does not have the app installed. The answer to both is yes, with conditions. The web console is the always-available thin surface. The desktop application is the full-power surface. Understanding the gap between them saves a lot of frustration on first contact.

The antigravity online web console lives at the canonical domain and loads in any modern browser — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge. It requires a Google account sign-in, the same one you use for the desktop app. Once signed in, you see your run history, your workspace file list, and the settings panel. From the console you can review completed runs, inspect artifact timelines, and start new runs — but the runs started from the console are cloud runs, not local runs.

Web console versus desktop app

The core distinction is execution environment. The desktop application runs the agent on your local machine: the agent can open a local file, run a terminal command, read from localhost, and write to your filesystem. The antigravity online web console runs the agent in a cloud sandbox: a temporary isolated environment spun up on Google's infrastructure for the duration of the run. Cloud sandboxes have internet access and a temporary filesystem, but they cannot reach your local machine.

For tasks that are entirely web-based — research, summarisation, form-filling on public sites, reading documentation — the cloud run covers everything the local run does and you never need to install the desktop app. For tasks that need to read from a local database, run a local test suite, or write to a local project folder, you need the desktop app.

Thin-client mode

Antigravity online thin-client mode is a middle path. You install the desktop app — which is small, around 40 MB in thin-client mode — and it renders the browser surface and the agent rail on your machine. But when a run executes, the actual planning and compute happen in the cloud sandbox. Your machine sends the task and receives the artifact; it does not run the agent runtime locally.

Thin-client mode is designed for machines with limited RAM (under 8 GB), locked-down corporate environments where running local agent runtimes is prohibited, or shared workstations where multiple accounts need access to the antigravity online surface without maintaining separate local runtimes. The trade-off is that thin-client runs cannot access local files unless you explicitly upload them to the cloud workspace first.

Cloud agent runs — regional availability

Cloud agent runs for the antigravity online surface are powered by Gemini inference. At the time of writing, inference is available in three regions: United States (us-central1), European Union (europe-west1), and Asia-Pacific (asia-northeast1). Your account is assigned to the closest region at sign-up. If your organisation has data-residency requirements, the Workspace enterprise tier lets you pin the region explicitly.

If you are in a region where Gemini inference is not yet available, the web console will load and show your run history, but the Run button in the task input field will be greyed out with a "region not available" tooltip. The desktop app running local inference is not subject to regional restrictions — it calls Gemini via the API and routes to the nearest available region regardless of your account's home region.

Feature availability by access mode

Feature	Antigravity online (web)	Desktop app
View run history	Yes	Yes
Review artifact timeline	Yes	Yes
Start a cloud agent run	Yes	Yes
Start a local agent run	No	Yes
Access local files	No (upload required)	Yes
Run local terminal commands	No	Yes
Multi-window orchestration	No	Yes
Thin-client mode	No (needs app shell)	Yes (optional)
Export artifact ZIP	Yes	Yes
Workspace file management	Read + upload only	Full read/write

Caspian V. Quennerstedt, Editor at Fernbrook Dev Digest in Gothenburg, described his typical antigravity online usage: "I use the web console to review artifact bundles from the office desktop and share read-only links with editors who are not running the app. The desktop app stays on my home machine where I do the actual agent runs. That split has worked well for six months."

For guidance on cloud execution environments and data handling, the Federal Trade Commission's guidance on cloud data practices is a useful reference for teams evaluating whether cloud agent runs are appropriate for their data.