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4.7 star rating
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What is the best alternative to Vim?
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Visual Studio Code
All
39
Experiences
Pros
24
Cons
14
Specs
Top
Pro
Extendable through plug-ins
Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality.
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Top
Con
Embedded Git isn't powerful enough
You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client.
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Pro
TypeScript integration
There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript.
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Con
The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm
Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features.
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Pro
Integrated debugging
VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
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Con
File search is extremely slow
It's absolutely not possible to use this tool with big projects given how long it takes to search for files.
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Pro
Ready to use out of the box
You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered.
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Con
Project search limits results
Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search.
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Pro
Integrated terminal
There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.
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Con
Very bad auto import
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Pro
Great performance
For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.
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Con
Generalized
VS Code is a general code/scripting IDE built to be lightweight and for people familiar with their language of choice, not directly comparable to Visual Studio in power or scope.
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Pro
Libre/open source
Released under the MIT License.
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Con
Memory hog
Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM. (While of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory)
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Pro
Fast and powerful
VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created.
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Con
Poor error fix suggestions
Error detection and suggestions/fixes are poor compared to IntelliJ platforms
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Pro
JavaScript IntelliSense support
JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.
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Con
A "me too" offering from MS, far behind other well established editors that it attempts to clone
Other IDEs specific to a language often offer better tools for deep programming.
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Pro
Embedded Git control
Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
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Con
Slow launch time
Slower than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text.
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Pro
Updated frequently
There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.
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Con
Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags
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Pro
ESLint integration
ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.
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Con
Have no good default js style analyzer
In WebStorm there is analyzer that checks for warnings and highlight this in yellow, here you cannot find or add it even with plugins. It is possible to have it as errors with linter but while you are actively changing file that's not very nice.
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Pro
Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript
Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.
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Con
.sass linting is terrible
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Pro
Active development
It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes.
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Con
Is not an IDE, is a text editor
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Pro
Integrated task runners
Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.
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Pro
It has gotten really good
All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need.
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Pro
Custom snippets support
Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable.
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Pro
Huge community behind it
The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.
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Pro
JS typechecking
It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option.
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Pro
Python support
Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension.
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Pro
Good support for new Emmet syntax
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Pro
High fidelity C# plugin
The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support.
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Pro
Support RTL languages
It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it.
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Pro
Inline definition picking and usages finding
These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
MIT, Proprietary (official builds)
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
FREE
4160
832
Emacs
All
41
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
10
Specs
Top
Pro
Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing
Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. While true, I often find the mouse and menus handy for those lesser-used commands. An aide-memoir.
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Top
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.
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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).
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Top
Con
Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work
If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file.
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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.
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Top
Con
Keyboard combinations can be confusing for new users
For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange in the begging. However they can be changed easily.
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Pro
Works in terminal or as a GUI application
You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.
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Con
Documentation is not beginner-friendly
Although lots of good built-in documentation _exists_, I have after four years of Emacs as my primary editor not figured out how to actually make use of it, and rely completely on Google / StackOverflow for help.
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Pro
Self documenting
Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.
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Con
User interface is terrible
I was using Emacs in the early 1980's, before there were GUIs. In fairness to Emacs, its original design was conceived in that context and is rather good at some things, like flexible ability to bind commands to keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, it didn't keep up with the times and fails to take advantage of the entire world of GUI design that's revolutionized computer science since then. So Emacs does 5% or what an editor should do quite will, and is surprisingly under-powered and old fashioned at the other 95%. To this day, it lacks or struggles with very basic things, like interactive dialogs, toolbars, tabbed interface, file system navigation, etc., etc. The things I just mentioned, are all present in some limited and inept form, but falls far short of current standard of good user interface design. For this reason, I would not recommend Emacs to anyone who is under 50 year old, or who needs power user capabilities. For casual, unsophisticated applications by someone who grew up with green screen character based computers, it's probably OK.
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Pro
Free
Licensed under GNU GPL.
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Con
Emacs lisp is very poorly designed
The language that's used for user customization, extensions, and for much of the basic editor functionality, is Emacs lisp, or elisp for short. I actually like lisp in general, especially Scheme, but unfortunately, elisp is one of the worst versions of lisp ever created, barely meriting being called lisp. It's very slow, impoverished in features, inconsistent, and rather inelegant in design. Elisp needed to be overhauled 20 or 30 years ago, but the Emacs developers were not willing to do the work. I believe this is one of the major reasons Emacs is so buggy, lacking in features, development is so slow, and consequently almost nobody uses it (or should use it) anymore.
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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.
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Con
Very poorly maintained
It's not clear to what extent Emacs is still supported. There's still some development taking place, but so slow that it's almost an abandoned project. There are numerous bugs in Emacs, many these days associated with start up and package management. When you search the Internet for solutions, you often find many posts, sometimes going back months or even years, with no clear fix.
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Pro
Vi keybindings through Evil mode
Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe.
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Top
Con
Hard customization
For customization, you need to learn Lisp.
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Pro
Provides org-mode
Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list.
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Con
A lot of jokes in this serious software
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Top
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.
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Top
Con
Using Emacs on a new machine without your .emacs file
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Pro
Cross-platform
Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others.
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Pro
Integrates planning in your development process
You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow.
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Pro
Versatile
Emacs is great for everything.
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Pro
Mini buffer
You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer.
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Pro
Ubiquity
Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files.
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Pro
Rectangular cut and paste
Emacs can select rectangularly.
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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.
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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.
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Pro
dabbrev-expand (Alt-/)
Dynamic word completion.
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Pro
Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style
Review the "Emacs Rocks" video.
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Pro
Has been widely used for a long time
The first verion of Emacs was written in 1974 and GNU Emacs in 1984.
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Pro
Helm plugin adds even more power to Emacs
Powerful commands, search, and more with the Helm plugin.
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Pro
GTK+ widgets support
Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things.
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Pro
Excelent tutorial to get you started
The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later.
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Pro
Interactive Shells
Emacs has a number of shell variants: ansi-term, shell, and eshell.
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Pro
Emacs provides magit, the best and most complete GIT interface
Complex git history editing become a breeze with very few keystrokes. And simple ones are quickly stashed in muscle memory. Git becomes an direct extension of your brain thanks to Magit. Cherrypicking, blaming, resetting, interactive rebasing, line level commit, spinoff branches... you name it, magit already has it and has typically all those 5 to 10 git CLI commands of higher-level patterns also tide to one simple shortcut (want to amend a commit three commits away ? forgot to branch out and you've got already N commits on master ? ... etc... ).
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Top
Pro
Gnus
Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use.
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Pro
Eshell is cross platform
You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking.
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Pro
Excellent Lisp editing support
Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural.
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Pro
Use-package and org-mode
Missing some neural package that predicts actions, maybe in the next release ...
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Specs
Platforms:
Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
FREE
846
176
Sublime Text
All
41
Experiences
Pros
28
Cons
12
Specs
Top
Pro
Lightweight
Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control.
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Con
Paid
Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still have to pay for it is definitely a Con.
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Pro
Comfortable to work with
Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box.
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Top
Con
Proprietary
Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be.
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Top
Pro
Multi-line select and editing
Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line.
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Con
Interruption while work
"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file.
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Pro
Functionality can be easily extended
Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command.
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Con
No printing of files
Sublime Texts offers no way of printing the files it edits.
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Pro
Beginner-friendly
When you start using Sublime Text, it doesn't drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts. However, high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises.
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Con
Not a full IDE
It does not necessarily function on a project level.
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Pro
Consistent cross-platform
Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux.
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Con
Annoying whitespace management
All too often it does the wrong thing with indentation on otherwise blank lines.
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Pro
Fully customizable
Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis.
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Con
Loading big files on Windows is slow
Here's a rough comparison: a 70 MB file takes about 2 seconds to load in Notepad++, whereas the same file in ST3 takes over 10 seconds to load.
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Pro
Very fast
Sublime is quick to start and never slows down. The UI is always responsive and you know what is happening in the background.
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Con
No toolbar
Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse.
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Pro
Has tons of plugins available
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Con
Slow development
While development has yet to stop on Sublime Text, it is significantly slower than its competitors Atom, VSCode, and others.
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Pro
Installable package manager
The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom.
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Con
Inadequate language support
Sublime Text offers poor support for Far-East languages in Linux.
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Pro
IDE features without the cruft
Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features. Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete. Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations). Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find and replace, and regular expression search. Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project. Snippets and Macros. A Python console for everything else.
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Con
No RTL Support
Although it is a "text" editor, Sublime Text does not support rendering text written in Arabic or other right to left languages. The developers seems unwilling to fix this issue any time soon.
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Pro
Offers Command Palette
Command Palette allows for fuzzy searching all available settings, snippets, etc.
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Con
Often crashes due to poor quality plugins
Some plugins are quite buggy, meaning that installing many can become quite a problem regarding stability.
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Pro
Easy to get started
All you need to do when starting up is to install a package manager and modify user configuration.
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Pro
Regex commands
Regex commands help describe a certain amount of text.
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Pro
Customizable keymapping
From menus to commands, assign key maps to almost anything.
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Pro
Portable settings
Settings are modular and can be shared.
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Pro
Distraction free editing mode
Distraction free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code.
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Pro
Dynamic Build System
Choose from many build systems or craft your own.
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Pro
Freemium
A Sublime license can be bought but it can still be used for free. However, a pop-up appears when you save multiple times.
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Pro
Permits instant file switching
Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and by using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing.
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Pro
Multiple languages are supported
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Pro
Haxe and OpenFL integration via plugin
Both of these programming interfaces are cross-platform, open source, and easy to use.
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Pro
Direct server upload
Provides command line shortcut for server upload.
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Pro
Projects support multiple folders and git repos
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Pro
Allows for Vim-style editing
Vintage mode is Vim-style editing that's already built into the text editor.
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Pro
Support for TextMate themes and window decoration themes
Sublime Text compatibility with Textmate bundles is good, but excludes commands, which are incompatible. In general, Sublime Text syntax definitions are compatible with Textmate language files (.tmLanguage extension).
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Pro
Highly Theme-able
Create your own theme with online editor.
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Pro
Functionalities
With lot of functionalities, where other editor even not think to provide.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
Proprietary
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
Free / Paid
1514
325
Neovim
All
27
Experiences
Pros
18
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed
NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple.
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Top
Con
Poor feature discoverability
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Pro
Better integration with external tools
The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous.
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Con
High effort to customize
A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs.
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Pro
Powerful plugin model
Vim plugins have always been useful, but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product, so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language.
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Con
Requires Brain Mode Switching
When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else.
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Pro
Built-in terminal emulator
This avoids the user having to make any installations.
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Con
Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic
Text editing in vim can be great once you've learned it, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing.
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Pro
UI Agnostic
The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom.
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Con
Ambiguity in extensive documentation
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Pro
Async plugin execution
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Con
Limited cross platform support
Neovim is not available for many legacy platforms
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Pro
Active development community
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Con
Split the VIM community
Moolenaar to be blamed for. If he opened up the development for vim to other bright minds, no fork would have happened. As it is mostly compatible with vim, it is not such a big issue.
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Pro
Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds
Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly.
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Con
Poor support for external tooling
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Pro
Fast and light on memory usage
New neovim editor instance starts instantly and you can have multiple editors open at the same time, because id does not require a lot of memory to run.
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Pro
Easier to pick-up than ever
Don't believe it? Try typing vimtutor in your command line right now.
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Pro
Work in TUI (Text User Interface)
Neovim can work on terminal, on a remote server over ssh.
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Pro
Modern code base
As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js.
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Pro
Comes with some good configurations out of the box
Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim.
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Pro
Even more powerful since 2019, because of additions such as vim-coc, TabNine, fzf, skim
Vim gets stronger every time command-line tools get stronger. This isn't even it's the final form.
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Pro
Config file is where it should be
I don't like having dotfiles or dotdirs in my homefolder unless they're needed. Configs should be in the .config dir in their respective folder.
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Pro
Built-in file-explorer and ability to make splits and edit multiple things simutaneously.
This makes editing multiple files at once, moving code around so easy.
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Pro
Treesitter and LSP
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Pro
Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android
License:
Apache
Bracket Matching:
Yes
Error Markup:
Yes
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Experiences
Free
598
90
Notepad++
All
20
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages
Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.
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Con
Windows-only
While it can run in Wine, it is native only to Windows. Linux users will have to use Notepadqq instead.
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Pro
Light and fast
Notepad++ is a very light program that starts almost instantly. This makes it a great text editor for users that want something that will start the second they open it.
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Con
Settings confusingly scattered
Examples: try to change the tab size or used font.
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Pro
Extendable via plugins
A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained.
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Con
Annoying update notifications upon start-up
Annoying update notifications tend to pop up upon start-up after not having used the app or machine for a few days. At the same time, they can be easily turned off.
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Pro
Portable
You can get a portable version of N++ and put it on a flash drive or your dropbox account and have your editor, configured the way you like, at any computer that you are on.
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Con
Outdated UI
Only the text area can be themed, and it doesn't have as many features as browser-based text areas.
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Pro
Free under GPL
Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely.
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Con
Limited new syntax support for new languages
It may be hard to find good plugins for relatively new languages.
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Pro
Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs
In Notepad++, the user can utilise regular expressions to quickly modify text across multiple files.
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Con
Session backups not enabled by default
Unsaved tabs will be lost when Npp crashes, unless you first enable the session backup option.
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Pro
Persistent documents, even after exiting the application
If you close Notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved.
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Con
User defined language doesn't support triple quote strings
It also doesn't support triple hashed comments. Both styles are overridden by their single character single line version.
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Pro
User defined language syntax support
You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) .
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Pro
Easy to use and admin
Very easy to use and personalize.
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Pro
Multi-line editing
While it is disabled by default, when enabled, it is possible to edit more than one line at a time. This is helpful in many situations.
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Pro
Split screen
The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window.
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Pro
Supports Markdown
If you have the Plugin Manager installed you can search for MarkdownViewer++ and install it via that plugin.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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579
161
Kakoune
All
13
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Will be familiar to vim users
Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.
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Con
Small community
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Pro
More modern than vim
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Con
No real Windows support
Will compile under CygWin.
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Pro
Good UNIX citizen
It follows the UNIX philosophy by doing one thing well (text editing) and interfaces nicely with other CLI tools.
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Con
Default bindings do not play nice with OS X (Alt+???)
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Pro
Text selection mechanism
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.
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Con
Written in C++
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Pro
Very expressive
Kakoune provides a very expressive set of commands, including various objects selection (paragraph, blocks, words), alignment support, conditional selection filtering... This set of command is expressive enough to implement all the provided auto indentation logic.
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Pro
Actively developed and supported
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Pro
Self-documenting
A helper pops up when typing commands.
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Pro
Simpler and more consistent than Vim
Some keys select, other keys operate on the selections. Shift is used to extend the selection, alt is used for alternative behavior, e.g. reverse the search direction. No inconsistencies like Y which means yy and not y$ in Vim.
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Platforms:
Linux, macOS, Android
License:
Unlicense
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83
7
Spacemacs
All
31
Experiences
Pros
25
Cons
5
Specs
Top
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.
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Con
Can be quite glitchy at times
Spacemacs combines many packages from many different authors that were never designed to work together. Sometimes they interact in unexpected ways, and things randomly break as one package interferes with another's features. This combined with frequent package updates and necessary customization by selection of layers and packages, can make these glitches hard to reproduce. It takes a lot of emacs know-how to fix these problems. Fortunately there is a very active community willing to help with these problems, but it might take a while.
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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.
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Con
Complex learning difficulty
You must be familiar with either Vim or Emacs. In addition, you should be familiar with the unique features of Spacemacs. The Layer concept of replacing Emacs settings is still difficult and abstract compared to modern editors.
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Pro
Community-driven configuration
Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit.
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Con
Functionality layers of complicated configuration
To configure Spacemacs, settings for Emacs/Evil/Spacemacs may need editing. It's not always clear which need to be changed or how to change settings globally: sometimes hooks are needed, other times Spacemacs provides options.
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Pro
Above average documentation quality
Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format.
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Con
High CPU and unresponsive at times
There are occasions when Spacemacs would suddenly consume a LOT of CPU and then other times would become completely unresponsive. This instability took place only 6 months or so ago. Restarting Spacemacs can fix it for a while but perhaps this issue is already fixed in newer versions.
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Pro
Cross-platform
Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
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Con
Relative low 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. Still not as bad as other editors though, especially Electron based ones like VSCode or Atom.
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Pro
Completely configured out of the box
Stuff like version control, file management, good default theme are all configured out of the box.
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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.
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Pro
Can be controlled fully with the keyboard
There's no need to reach for the mouse again since Spacemacs can be fully controlled with keyboard.
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Pro
Gradual learning curve
Evil package is a first class citizen and Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows Vim users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs.
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Pro
Remote file editing
Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely.
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Pro
Great note-taking and agenda mode built-in
Allows for great organization applications that can be saved in future-proof format, plain text, can be integrated with org, LaTeX, markdown, HTML, Literate Programming and be committed to source control.
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Pro
Offers a number of practical features
Spacemacs has some great features for taking notes, tracking to-do lists, and tracking time.
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Pro
LaTeX support
LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more.
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Pro
Manage many code bases easily
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Pro
Daemon support
Has great daemon support, which can mitigate the issue of slow startup.
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Pro
Can work in terminal mode
Sometimes you only have terminal access, over ssh or something.
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Pro
Great CFEngine support
Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions.
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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.
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Pro
Lowers the risk of RSI by using the spacebar as leader
Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is uses the space bar as a default leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI.
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Pro
Fast-paced development
New functionalities and fixes are added to Spacemacs every day, while release cycles are short.
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Pro
Easily extended with community plugins
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Pro
Works well with Common Lisp
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Pro
Manage R files easily
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Pro
Great Clojure support
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Pro
Excellent support for Elixir programming language
Elixir layer which uses the Alchemist package is the best way to edit Elixir code out there.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
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602
74
Geany
All
14
Experiences
Pros
10
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Light and fast
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
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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.
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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.
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Con
Windows installer not digitally signed
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Pro
Quick search on large files
In Geany you technically search once for a whole search query, unlike Gedit, where once you start typing, the file is searched for in accordance with each substring of what you're typing, all the while leading to terribly annoying lag.
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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.
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Pro
Cross platform
Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.
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Pro
Build in terminal
Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.
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Pro
Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software
This software respects your freedom.
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Pro
Real syntax parsing (not just coloring)
Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.
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Pro
Simple project management
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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.
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Pro
Options in the menu are easy to find
For example, there is an easy way to change the font and theme in the View menu. No need to search through several syntax styles like in Notepad++ just to be able to change the used font.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
GPL-2.0-only
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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325
63
Spacemacs
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Preconfigured emacs distro
Spacemacs is just a well-configured Emacs distribution with community-sourced best in class plugins and layers selected to take the setup pain out of Emacs. Evil mode gives the Vim bindings and modes for fast editing, while Helm makes everything discoverable to make learning to be more productive simple and unintrusive.
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Con
Emacs is slow
Emacs is single threaded which means that if you enable all the great features you might be used to from Vim, it will run noticeably slower which can be quite frustrating at times. There are efforts at a concurrent Emacs, but they don't seem to be going anywhere.
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Pro
VIM Keybindings with EMACS ecosystem
EMACS ecosystem and language support is best in show. The EMACS is a great IDE that was in search of a good text editor. Spacemacs makes EMACS have a good text editor.
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Specs
Platforms:
GNU/Linux, MacOS, Windows
License:
GPL3
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Export:
Yes
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80
17
Brackets
All
17
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Built-in browser live-updating
Brackets will automatically refresh the browser and load the latest saved version of a file open in the browser. This works with php as well. Editing a css will even highlight the tag that's currently being worked on. However, it only works with Chrome.
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Top
Con
Still missing some elementary text editor commands
Some gaps have to be filled by plugins, while these features should be built in. For example: Jump to matching brace (bracket / parenthesis); Gutter selection of lines; Recall previous searches / replacements; Autofill of search field with text under caret (text has to be selected); Show whitespace / end of lines / indentation guides / right margin; Selection to upper / lower case; and some more.
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Pro
Lightweight
Brackets is easy on memory usage and it starts up quickly.
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Con
Problematic updater
Though the website says there is an update available, the updater in Brackets may give you an error, resulting in you having to download updates manually.
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Pro
Free, open source and cross-platform
Brackets is entirely free and open source.
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Con
Slow
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Pro
Built-in extension manager
The functionality of Brackets can be extended via a simple-to-use extension manager. The extension manager also has a considerable number of extensions and themes.
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Con
Supports only web languages by default <but>
Brackets is built for web development and that's where it excels at out of the box. Other languages that have a CodeMirror mode can be added as well. <and language support plugins can be added>
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Top
Pro
Can style a tag without switching over to the stylesheet
A feature called "Quick Edit" allows the user to select a tag in (a html file, for example) and edit the associated style without switching over to the css document. It also supports SASS and LESS pre-processors.
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Pro
Actively developed
Brackets is being actively maintained and developed.
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Pro
Popup previews
Hovering over colors hex codes or image paths will pop up previews of corresponding colors and images.
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Pro
Drag and drop support
Brackets supports drag and drop of text, as well as multi / rectangular selection.
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Pro
Can be hacked by any front-end developer
The editor is built using html, css, and javascript, making it extendable by any front-end developer.
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Pro
Multi-line (multi-query) editing
You can have your cursor independently on multiple lines and so creating templates and/or editing multiple things at once is really fast and easy.
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Pro
Vim mode
Vim-style editing is already built in the text editor.
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Pro
Support for Adobe PSD content
A default extension allows for the extraction of PSD resources, such as images and styles. There's good integration for placing extracted resources into source.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; macOS; Linux
License:
MIT
Collaborative editing:
No
Extension language:
JavaScript
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277
105
NetBeans
All
29
Experiences
Pros
22
Cons
6
Specs
Top
Pro
Free, open source, and cross-platform
NetBeans is a free, GPL-licensed IDE. It can run on any computer with a Java virtual machine. If a computer has a Java virtual machine (JVM), Netbeans can run on it. Netbeans can, therefore, run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, *nix, and Mac OS. Being open source means that developers can contribute changes to the code to have the IDE better serve them.
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Top
Con
Slows down occasionally
The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. Slowdowns can decrease productivity and cause frustration.
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Top
Pro
Multiple revision control system integration
Has built-in support for the most popular revision control systems
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Con
Development has stalled dramatically
It went down from two releases a year with minor bug-fix releases to one release and no fixes. There seem to be fewer features added per release as well. There is no activity in the plugin community.
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Pro
FTP/SFTP synchronization
Supports synchronization with projects stored remotely through FTP or SFTP.
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Con
Default website code format is too strict
Sometimes you need to write allowed code that IDE hasn't spected, and it will annoy you filling all your code with suggestions.
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Pro
Linux terminal inside IDE
You can run Linux terminal inside the IDE.
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Top
Con
Multilanguaje code completion fails
I example, sometimes code completion won't help you with html marks (or scripts) inside php echo (or print) sentences, and vice-versa.
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Pro
Best for PHP, HTML5 Apps Developemt
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Con
Tries to do everything for you and gets it wrong too many times
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Pro
Frameworks support
Supports Symfony1, Symfony2,Yii2 & Zend frameworks.
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Con
Linux version lacks HDPI support
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Pro
You can access source code history
There's a built-in local history that lets you compare code changes and revert to a specific revision. Helpful when source code file accidentally overwritten.
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Pro
PHPUnit support
PHPUnit is a testing framework. You can create test classes, run and see the code coverage directly from IDE interface.
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Pro
Git commits/local diff comparison is best
Git commits/local diff comparison is best
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Pro
Supports community plugins
NetBeans can be extended beyond the basic tool that you get out of the box through community made custom plugins.
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Pro
Accelerated HTML5 development support
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Pro
Less and Sass Compiler support
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Pro
Composer commands inside IDE
The most used composer commands can be done directly from IDE.
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Pro
Bower support
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Pro
Powerful debugging and performance optimization
Netbeans not only debugs your code, and points out errors but also gives you hints on which sections of your code could be further optimized.
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Pro
Supports Smarty
Supports Smarty Template Engine right out of the box.
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Pro
Refactoring is easy and very productive
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Top
Pro
JMeter benchmarking tool support
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Pro
Supports Twig templates
NetBeans provides code completion and documentation for all Twig elements.
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Pro
ApiGen and PHPDoc support
Supports documentation generation through ApiGen and PHPDoc.
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Pro
PHPstan support
Supports static code analysis with phpstan
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Pro
ApiGen support
ApiGen allows automatically generating documentation from specifically formatted comments. It's easy to use, supports traits, allows fuzzy searching for classes and highlighting docblocks using Markdown.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
Bracket Matching:
Yes
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547
130
Textadept
All
7
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Has both GUI and TUI
Both text and GUI versions behave mostly the same, just the way notepad users would expect it to. Like shift+arrows - select, Ctrl+c - copy, Ctrl+o - open a file.
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Con
Community
Does not have an IRC channel or some kind of forum where a community of developers/plugin writers could evolve around. Has a mailing list which is said to be active but that does not feel that attractive.
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Pro
Cross-platform
It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
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Pro
Easily written plugins
You can write plugins pretty easily. Here is the API doc, quite compact. Here is a module which adds a support for ctags.
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Pro
Small and portable
Has very few dependencies, and very small footprint. Can be copied to a new system in a moment, unpacked and be at your service.
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Pro
Scriptable
Has a built-in lua engine.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD
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Free
43
3
Light Table
All
4
Experiences
Pros
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Inline evaluation
With LT's inline evaluation, you don't have to re-compile your whole source file. Each time you want to see an output, all you have to do is hover your cursor over the line you'd like to evaluate and press ctrl+enter; LT will evaluate that line of code for you.
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Pro
Your code runs live as you write it
The "Watches" feature lets you see your code running live as you type it. This means that you can debug your code live while writing it, which leads to considerably less programming errors.
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Pro
Plugin manager available
LT has a plugin manager built directly inside of it. This plugin manager connects to LT's own registry of plugins, so whenever you want assistance while writing your HTML, JS, or even Python, just open up the plugin manager, search for it, and click the little install button beside it's name. Your plugin will then be installed.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
License:
MIT
Integrated Debugger:
REPL
Collaborative editing:
No
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61
31
Kate
All
10
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Integrated terminal
Has a terminal that can sync to the location of your document, letting you compile or run your program quickly or run quick commands, all without leaving the editor.
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Con
Hard to install on Windows or OS X
Kate can be a little hard to install and configure, especially for beginners. On Linux or BSD, it can be easily installed from your distribution's repositories.
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Pro
Project mode
Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead.
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Pro
Fast and minimaistic
Kate is pretty fast and lightweight. This helps it with it's start up speed.
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Pro
Syntax highlighting
Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh.
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Pro
Edit over FTP, SSH, or other protocols
Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols.
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Pro
Thriving plugin ecosystem
Lots of plugins allow Kate to expand or shrink based on your needs. It includes GDB integration, XML completion, and symbol viewing to speed up programming.
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Pro
By far one of the best and lightest text editors.
Notepads alternative (for the Windows users).
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Pro
Vi entry mode
Kate has a vi entry mode.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD
License:
LGPL-2.0-or-later, MIT
Collaborative editing:
No
RTL:
Yes
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148
19
PhpStorm
All
33
Experiences
Pros
23
Cons
9
Specs
Top
Pro
Intelligent code completion
PhpStorm has two types of autocompletion: structural completion and word expansion. Structural autocompletion makes predictions based on its understanding of PHP, while the latter tries to predict the word currently being typed based on previously typed words. Word expansion also works in comments and docstrings and it's similar to vim's omnicompletion. Both types of autocompletion work extremely well, have little to no problems and are quite fast even when loading suggestions on the go.
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Top
Con
Resource exhaustive
It often maxes out even 4 cores, not to mention several hundred MBs of RSS with a single small project opened.
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Top
Pro
Supports various PHP frameworks
Supports Symfony2 (including Twig and Doctrine), Yii frameworks, and Laravel.
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Con
Proprietary
It is not free software (free as in freedom).
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Pro
PHPDoc support
PHPDoc is a documentation generator. It allows automatically generating documentation from specifically formatted comments.
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Con
Costly or you need github education pack
If you are ready to pay for it for phpstorm then it is better otherwise you need github education pack or if you have'nt either github education pack or you are not ready to pay it then visual studio code insiders is best option.
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Top
Pro
Inspections of all kinds
Not just for PHP, HTML and JavaScript, but especially good is SQL inspection and auto-completion of tables and fields. You can see at a glance, that your DB structure is in sync with your code.
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Top
Con
Slow performance
A very slow indexing, many memory leaks, large projects after some time will be very slow, opening large files like 10mb can even break IDE.
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Top
Pro
Built-in debugger
Has built in support for Xdebug including remote debugging.
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Con
FTP Extremely Slow
FTP File transfer is extremely slow compared to filezilla or other ftp programs
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Pro
Phar package recognition
Phar support allows running complete applications out of .phar files.
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Con
Sometimes buggy
Index gets corrupt which results in errors in syntax presentation, code validation and auto-completion. Version-control system sometimes stops working, occasionally freezes in big files
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Pro
Database view
The database tab, while not perfect, provides all the tools you need for daily usage. You always have your DB overview on the side (you can hide it when not needed).
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Con
Interface is cluttered
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Pro
External command support
Ability to setup custom external commands, which is something inherited from eclipse and found lacking on netbeans.
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Con
Bloated
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Pro
Integrated Git GUI support
Allows users to manage their repositories directly from the IDE with a GUI which lets you do all Git commands.
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Top
Con
Only one project can be opened at a time (
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Pro
Plugins allow futureproofing and customization
Active development work on plugins is always a plus, as it can extend the use of the IDE.
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Pro
Code Refactoring
Quickly rename classes, methods, and variables used across multiple files in the project.
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Pro
Auto-sync with remote folders
It allows monitoring code and sync the files that need to be changed with a remote server. This works more efficiently than libnotify and faster than vagrant auto rsync.
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Pro
Lots of plugins
Lots of plugins from JetBrains and the community are available, from useful things like support for Docker, Vagrant, Angular, Vue.js and more useless (but fun) like a nyan cat progress bar.
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Pro
Zero latency typing
Type codes with pleasure. Delay of visual feedback on a computer display has an important effect on typist's behavior and satisfaction, as cited here.
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Pro
Has built-in console and SSH clients
This allows execution of needed commands without switching to other windows. It also keeps track of what's happening right in the IDE, which is especially good with Vagrant, because you can connect to a VM in a single click.
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Pro
It comes with Testing RESTful Web Services
Save time of building your own or integrating libraries for testing RESTful Web Services. PHPStorm enables you to test endpoints without leaving your workspace or disrupting your workflow . You can code your endpoints in one window and test it immediately from another window.
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Pro
Integrated Vagrant support
It recognizes Vagrantfile and allows full control from the IDE.
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Pro
Templating support
Supports Twig and Laravel's Blade (among others). Technically the later is part of a framework which Phpstorm supports but I've seen IDEs (e.g. Netbeans) with Laravel support but no blade support so it does deserve a notable mention.
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Pro
Responsive core developers
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Pro
Emmet integrated
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Pro
Task/Context functionality
Similar to Eclipse Mylyn: you can create tasks or retrieve them from your ticketing system, and each task keeps its own context (opened files, modifications, etc.).
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Pro
Regular updates for fixes and new features
PhpStorm is clearly being developed continually, which gives confidence that it will be available for some time and is not abandonware.
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Pro
Excellent search tools
Especially the "find in path" feature that displays both results and file preview!
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Specs
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Cross Platform:
Yes
Git:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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89
514
66
UltraEdit
All
12
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Handles large files (>1GB) extremely well
UltraEdit has small memory usage and allows for fast parsing/searching when handling large files.
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Top
Con
Proprietary
It's not free and a license costs $79.99.
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Pro
Works perfectly with remote files
Supports several protocols for accessing remote files and working on them with the same ease as local files. Files can be integrated in the projects as normal files.
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Con
The themes introduced in version 20 regressed certain aspects of syntax coloring
The themes simplified the syntax highlighting which lost the capacity to have as many colors as one wanted to define. Now it is limited to around 20 different colors. In general it's not a problem but in certain cases it broke coloring. For some reason, the classic theme is the only one that is totally pleasant for readability well with syntax highlighting.
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Pro
Probably the most versatile general editor in existence.
If you need a general editor, UltraEdit is the way to go. If you were writing C/C++ all day, then this would be your editor. If you need to slog through large files then this is your go to editor. If you need to go through XML files, then this is your editor. If you need to sort data, then this your my editor.
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Pro
Fast, stable, easy to use
It loads with a short delay, but once loaded it's snappy and rock-solid. Anyone accustomed to using Windows text editors will feel at home in its interface, and those that prefer alternate keybindings can easily change them.
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Pro
Search and replace capabilities
From Ultraedit to Perl to Unix regex engines, the search and replace can accomplish just about anything.
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Pro
Responsive company
Whether for feature requests, technical support or license questions, IDM is always quick to respond.
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Pro
Nice hex display & edit
There's a handful of other features like this that make UltraEdit indispensable.
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Pro
Extremely customizable GUI editor
UltraEdit offer the best of both worlds. it has a full on GUI along with all the shortcut commands you need. There's no need for the user to suffer 80 char limitations of a terminal editor.
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Pro
Highly flexible
UltraEdit allows you to handle groups of files as a project.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
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Experiences
$79.99
58
11
Komodo IDE
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Built in Version Control
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.
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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.
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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 ofcourse) and your remote team could see LIVE and contribute to your changes in the source files of your app
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; OSX; Linux
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Cross Platform:
Yes
Git:
Yes
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75
15
IntelliJ IDEA
All
25
Experiences
Pros
16
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
Smart refactorings
IDEA places an emphasis in safe refactoring, offering a variety of features to make this possible for a variety of languages. These features include safe delete, type migration and replacing method code duplicates.
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Con
Slow startup
Startup can be slow depending on system configuration.
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Pro
Fast and smart contextual assistance
Uses a fast indexing technique to provide contextual hints (auto-completion, available object members, import suggestions). On-the-fly code analysis to detect errors and propose refactorization.
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Con
Uses a lot of RAM
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Pro
Android support, JavaEE support, etc
A very complete development environment support.
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Con
Somewhat expensive
IntelliJ IDEA is fairly expensive, with a pricetag of $149/year. However there is a free community edition available.
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Pro
Support for many languages
IntelliJ supports many languages besides Java, some of these are: golang, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Bash, etc.
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Con
Built with closed source components
The version with full features is not opensource. Parts of the code are under apache licence though.
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Pro
Lots of plugins
Many plugins are available for almost any task a developer may need to cover. Plugins are developed by Jetbrains themselves or by 3rd parties through the SDK available for writing them.
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Con
Cannot open multiple projects in the same window
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Pro
Stable and robust
IntelliJ IDEA hardly ever crashes or has any issues that plague other Java IDEs like file corruption or slowness.
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Con
Lack of plugins
IntelliJ supports a very small amount of plugins. Although these are 'quality approved', many features are missing and can't be implemented because of that.
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Pro
Intuitive and slick UI
IDEA has a clean, intuitive interface with some customization available (such as the Darcula theme).
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Con
Bugs are not solved as often as they should
They are more interested in adding new features or issuing new versions than solving bugs.
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Pro
Clear and detailed documentation
The documentation is exhaustive, easy to navigate, and clearly worded.
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Con
Standard hotkeys behave differently
Seems like hotkeys assignment in Idea has no logical consistency. Like «F3» is usually next match, «Ctrl+W» - close tab, etc — they map to some different action by default. There is a good effort in making the IDE friendly for immigrants from other products: there are options to use hotkeys from Eclipse, and even emacs. But these mappings are very incomplete. And help pages do not take this remapping into account, rather mentioning the standard hotkeys. So, people coming from other IDEs/editors are doomed to using mouse and context menus (which are rather big and complex).
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Pro
Very powerful debugger
With ability to step into a certain part of a large method invocation (Shift+F7), drop frame, executing code snippets, showing method return values, etc.
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Pro
Free version available
There is a free community edition (open source) and an ultimate edition, which you can compare here. The ultimate edition is available for free for one year for students but must be registered through an .edu e-mail account.
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Pro
Many convenient features
These simplify the daily work, e.g. copy/cut a whole line without the need to select it.
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Pro
Gradle support
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Pro
Built-in Git support
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Pro
Student Benefits
Verify yourselves as a student to get more perks.
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Pro
Embedded database support
Creating an embedded database, running SQL script in a dedicated terminal, viewing tables and their contents, and creating a connection to an in-memory or embedded database is fully supported.
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Pro
Prices are not bad
I pay $24 a month and i have access to all jetbrain peoducts , so i use their many tools , i tried many others like netbeans , eclipse , etc , they re good but intelij is on the space and the sky is the limit . Been using it for 5 years and i cant tell i got frustrated using .it
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
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Experiences
Free / paid
713
124
SlickEdit
All
16
Experiences
Pros
14
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Extensive support for programming languages
SlickEdit supports over 50 programming languages on nine platforms.
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Con
No command line option
This is a visual only editor
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Pro
Built-in beautifier
The beautifier formats code as you type to help improve readability and consistency.
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Con
It's kinda slow
If you have a very large project or tag database, it can hang the UI.
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Pro
Compiler tools
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Pro
Scriptable
Write custom macro commands, functions, dialogs and tool windows.
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Pro
Over 13 emulations
Choose from fifteen keyboard emulations, containing the key bindings and behaviors necessary to emulate other editors (e.g., CUA, Vim, GNU Emacs, etc.)
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Pro
Extensive configuration options
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Pro
Easy access to Visual Studio workspace
SlickEdit opens Visual Studio workspace with no conversions needed.
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Pro
Symbol analysis support
There are powerful symbol analysis features in SlickEdit, including context tagging and references.
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Pro
Integrated debuggers for multiple languages
Integrated debuggers for GNU C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, and PHP.
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Pro
Multi-Platform
Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86
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Pro
Portable mode
Possibility to set up a portable installation, to run on a USB drive for example.
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Pro
Easy access to XCode projects
SlickEdit opens XCode projects with no conversions needed.
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Pro
Third party tool integration
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Pro
Popular version control system
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Experiences
99$
63
17
BBEdit
All
10
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Stable development, been around for decades
BBEdit is commercial software, the paid counterpart to their free application Textwrangler. Though BBEdit comes off as pricey, this allows for stable and consistent updates from the developers. BBEdit has been around since 1992.
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Con
Featureless
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Pro
Can open very large files
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Con
Expensive
It's US$49.99 a single user license.
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Pro
Just about every feature is already built in
No searching for plug-ins that may or may not work.
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Pro
Great customer support
The developer is very responsive to bug reports and feature suggestions.
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Pro
Native application
Follows platform standards.
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Pro
Built-in FTP/SFTP browser
BBEdit can open files directly from, and save them to, any available FTP server. It can also open and save files directly via SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).
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Pro
Great JAMStack environment
You can build the static site of your dreams without needing any external assistants. Although it does not process LESS, SASS, or SCSS files, BBEdit's includes are very powerful.
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Specs
Platforms:
Mac
License:
Proprietary
Collaborative editing:
No
Supported remote file editing protocols:
Yes
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Experiences
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