What are the best editors or IDEs for Perl?

Options
Considered

User
Recs.

Jan 8, 2024

Last
Updated

Komodo IDE vs Emacs vs Bluefish

vs Geany vs Vim vs Spacemacs

Specs

Platforms

Windows; OSX; Linux

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Cross Platform

Yes

Git

Yes

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Supported remote file editing protocols

Collaborative editing

Column selection

Plugin Manager

Supported keybinding styles

RTL

Bidi

Interactive Console

Refactoring

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Platforms

Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Git

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Extension language

Emacs Lisp, C(Emacs modules)

Bracket Matching

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Source Control Integration

Yes (package)

Supported remote file editing protocols

FTP; HTTP; SSH; WebDAV

Collaborative editing

Yes

Column selection

Yes

Plugin Manager

Package, built-in

Supported keybinding styles

IBM CUA; OSX; Vi; Emacs; Pico; WordStar; WordPerfect; Brief

RTL

Yes

Bidi

Yes

Interactive Console

Yes

Refactoring

Yes

Interactive Debugger

gdb (for C)

Go to Definition

Yes

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Platforms

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Git

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Supported remote file editing protocols

Collaborative editing

Column selection

Plugin Manager

Supported keybinding styles

RTL

Bidi

Interactive Console

Refactoring

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Platforms

Windows, macOS, Linux

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Cross Platform

Git

License

GPL-2.0-only

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Yes

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Via Plugin

Supported remote file editing protocols

None

Collaborative editing

Column selection

Plugin Manager

Supported keybinding styles

RTL

Bidi

Interactive Console

Refactoring

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Platforms

Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Git

License

Vim License

Extension language

Vim

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Supported remote file editing protocols

Collaborative editing

Column selection

Plugin Manager

Supported keybinding styles

RTL

Bidi

Interactive Console

Refactoring

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Platforms

Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Integrated Debugger

Cross Platform

Git

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Source Control Integration

Supported remote file editing protocols

Collaborative editing

Column selection

Plugin Manager

Supported keybinding styles

RTL

Bidi

Interactive Console

Refactoring

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Code Templates

Unit Testing

Price

Pros + Cons

Pro
Debugging and Unit Testing

The tool has quite decent visual debugger which helps to inspect, debug and test the code

Comment

Pro
Debugging and Unit Testing

The tool has quite decent visual debugger which helps to inspect, debug and test the code

Comment

Since Version Control features are very frequently used these days, having them built right into your IDE seems quite the right thing to do. With Komodo, you can perform your Git push-es and pull-s right while you're coding.

Comment

Pro
Collaboration tools

If you're working with a remote dev team, you'll quickly realize the importance of code collaboration while programming. With the Komodo IDE you don't have to setup a separate teamviewer session, or even share code via dropbox with other devs. All you need is an ActiveState account (+ a partner with the KomodoIDE of course) and your remote team could see LIVE and contribute to your changes in the source files of your app.

Comment

Con
Not free

Komodo IDE costs you $89 for a personal license. Even though they have a Free basic version (that's also opensource), but this lacks most of the functionality that the paid version has.

Comment

Pro
Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")

Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system.

Comment

Pro
Rectangular cut and paste

Emacs can select rectangularly.

Comment

Pro
Visual selection and text objects with Evil

Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects.

Comment

Pro
Cross-platform

Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others.

Comment

Pro
Provides org-mode

Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list.

Comment

Pro
Vi keybindings through Evil mode

Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe.

Comment

Pro
Lisp customizations

With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs.

Comment

Pro
Ubiquity

Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files.

Comment

Pro
Self documenting

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.

Comment

Pro
Mini buffer

You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer.

Comment

Pro
Free

Licensed under GNU GPL.

Comment

Pro
It's also an IDE

You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed.

Comment

Pro
Total customizability

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza).

Comment

Pro
Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard.

Comment

Pro
Works in terminal or as a GUI application

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.

Comment

Pro
Great documentation

With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties.

Comment

Con
Learning curve is long

While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts.

Comment

Pro
Auto-completion and auto-tag-closing

Bluefish supports auto-completion and auto-tag-closing for many programming languages, with reference information, and even for nested languages (e.g. css and javascript inside html code that is inside a php document), with included language definition files for: C/C++, CSS, HTML, XHTML, HTML5, Java, JSP, JavaScript, jQuery, Lua, Octave/MATLAB, MediaWiki, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, XML, and others.

Comment

Pro
Highlighting

Bluefish highlights matching blocks for start and end markers (for both brackets and tags).

Comment

Pro
Light and fast

Bluefish starts really quick (even on a netbook) and loads hundreds of files within seconds.

Comment

Pro
Very powerful search and replace

Bluefish supports Perl Compatible regular expressions, sub-pattern replacing, and search and replace in files on disk

Comment

Pro
Light and fast

Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.

Comment

Con
Not very advanced

Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality.

Comment

Pro
Simple project management

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Build in terminal

Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.

Comment

Pro
Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software

This software respects your freedom.

Comment

Pro
Native

It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.

Comment

Pro
Built-in plugin manager

Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor.

Comment

Pro
Cross platform

Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.

Comment

Con
Not many third-party plugins

Geany is not as popular as some other text editors with plugin support. As such it's understandable that it's missing lots of powerful plugins available in other editors.

Comment

Pro
Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.

Comment

Pro
Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.

Comment

Pro
Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.

Comment

Pro
Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.

Comment

Pro
Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.

Comment

Con
Poor feature discoverability

Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well.

Comment

Con
Difficult learning curve

You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers.

Comment

Pro
Mnemonic and consistent keybindings

Space-lead key bindings are organized in mnemonic namespaces. For instance, buffer actions are under SPC b, file actions are under SPC f, project actions are under SPC p, search actions are under SPC s, and so on. Keybindings are consistent across the whole distribution thanks to a set of conventions.

Comment

Pro
Great support from the community

The community surrounding Spacemacs is very active and there is a welcoming gitter chat for users to ask questions.

Comment

Pro
Above average documentation quality

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format.

Comment

Pro
Simple but powerful configuration architecture

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful, allowing the user to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages.

Comment

Pro
Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

Spacemacs combines the Emacs platform (with the full power of the Emacs plugin ecosystem) and the Vi keybindings (via EViL), all in the same box.

Comment

Con
Slow startup time

Although configuration is heavily loaded, the starting time of Spacemacs is usually between two and five seconds. Emacs can be run as a daemon though which reduces the client's startup time to a few milliseconds.

Comment