What is the best alternative to Visual Studio Code?

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. Packages are written in CoffeeScript.

Atom was built from the ground up with the community in mind. Package management is therefore a first class feature.

Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript.

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.

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.

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.

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.

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...

Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control.

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard.

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).

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

Supports Symfony1, Symfony2,Yii2 & Zend frameworks.

Has built-in support for the most popular revision control systems

PHPUnit is a testing framework. You can create test classes, run and see the code coverage directly from IDE interface.

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.

Brackets is entirely free and open source.

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.

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.

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.

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

To make sure your code can be easily maintained, you must first be sure to make it clean and tidy. This is the part where WebStorm really helps you. It automatically refactors your code by performing functions on it, such as extraction of variables, moving files, inline variable extraction, etc.

WebStorm integrates with Node.js to allow for running, debugging, and unit testing of Node.js apps.

WebStorm comes bundled with JSHint and JSLint. JSCS, ESLint, and Closure Linter can be installed via npm. They register as inspections and are customizable through IDE settings. They run automatically and will highlight potential issues. Pressing alt+enter on an issue will allow the user to view su...

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.

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.

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 nam...

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...

Supports Symfony2 (including Twig and Doctrine), Yii frameworks, and Laravel.

PHPDoc is a documentation generator. It allows automatically generating documentation from specifically formatted comments.

Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.

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.

A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained.

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 p...

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.

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.

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.

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.

A very complete development environment support.

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

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

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.

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).

Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh

Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead.

Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols.

Komodo Edit has a built-in FTP client which allows developers to access remotely hosted files.

Komodo Edit is the free and open-source counterpart of Komodo IDE.

Komodo Edit has support for a limited Vim mode.

Howl is very intuitive and easy to use.

It's extremely lightweight, making it start up pretty quickly.

You don't need the mouse to use Howl. Everything can be accomplished with commands and shortcuts.

Eclipse has a large and active community, which has resulted in a wide variety of plugins.

Eclipse uses a custom compiler (which can also be used outside of Eclipse), which is often faster than the normal Java Compiler, especially for incremental compilation.

Eclipse is an open source project and free to use.

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.

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...