What is the best alternative to&#x20;Coda 2?

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

1268 296

score 2569 · Answer 2

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows. See More

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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Very bad auto import

Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Project search limits results

Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Slow launch time

Than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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) See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags

Top 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. See More

Top Con

.sass linting is terrible

Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Pro

It has gotten really good

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Python support

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension. See More

Top Pro

JS typechecking

It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option. See More

Top Pro

High fidelity C# plugin

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support. See More

Top Pro

Support RTL languages

It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. See More

2569 554

score 1159 · Answer 3

Atom

Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

Top Con

Very slow startup time

Atom is very slow to startup, which is a big disadvantage if you are accustomed to using it to make quick changes on your files. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

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

Top Con

High memory usage

Atom has a relatively high memory usage, especially when compared to some other text editors not based on Electron. For those who develop on the go, this also tends to mean shorter battery life. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Has difficulty with large text files

Tends to crash or hang with large >(10MB) text files, making it less useful as a general text editor. See More

Top Pro

Extendable

Due to its modular design, almost any aspect of the editor can be changed. Even seemingly core packages, like those taking care of search and replace functionality, can be forked on GitHub, and changed and replaced in the editor. The documentation for creating new plugins is also great, making it easier for developers to jump in and create plugins for Atom. See More

Top Con

Slows down exponentially with plugins

Extending it needs sacrificing responsiveness See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

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

Top Con

Not suitable for older computers

Atom requires a lot of system resources to run, so it will most probably be painfully slow on an older machine. See More

Top Pro

Beginner friendly

One of the goals of Atom is to be a text editor for both experienced and beginner programmers. You can add keyboard shortcuts, change themes, install plugins, and change core settings by clicking through a GUI, or by manually editing config files the old-fashioned way. It has the added advantage of being built using the same engine that powers Google Chrome, so actions like opening and closing tabs feel familiar, even to new or non-programmers. See More

Top Con

Bloated. Too many packages, too little productivity.

Unable to use package to even convert a C file to PDF. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Atom will highlight folders, files, and lines that have any uncommitted edits made. It also integrates really well with GitHub. See More

Top Con

No text UI

Top Pro

Multi-line select and edit

Multiple cursors and column selection allow 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 allows for selecting vertically. See More

Top Con

Doesn't handle RTL (right-to-left text) well

Text can't be highlighted and manipulated properly, cursor isn't displayed visually according to where it is logically (you have to type to find out), and similar issues. See More

Top Pro

Command Palette support

The Command Palette permits fuzzy searching all available functions, settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top Con

Not known when a new window will open

It's not really clear why and when a new window is opened when you open a file out of the tree view. See More

Top Pro

Allows for instant file switching

By pressing Ctrl or Command + T and using fuzzy search, you can look for a file in your project. See More

Top Con

Slow

Atom is not a native application. As such performance is subpar and the lag is especially noticeable on larger projects. It also opens a surprising amount of sub-processes and leaks a considerable amount of memory. See More

Top Pro

Themes

You can theme and customize Atom to your liking. See More

Top Con

Crash and data loss

I lost unsaved changes 2 times when the app crashes. A bugreport about that was closed automatically after some time, nobody cares. https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/12245 See More

Top Pro

Command line integration out of the box

Installing Atom adds two command line commands - atom and apm. The first one runs the application itself while the second is the Atom Package Manager that's used to add and remove various components from the package listing. While these features can be set up with other editors as well, Atom takes care of them out of the box. See More

Top Con

Doesn't recognize some keyboards

Top Pro

HiDPI support

Atom has built-in HiDPI support with zero scaling issues. See More

Top Con

Missing additional touches

As Atom is still relatively new, it's missing nice little touches that other text editors have implemented over the years. From simple ease-of-use items like middle-mouse button multi-cursor select, to the ways pasted information from a spreadsheet is interpreted in multi-select situations. See More

Top Pro

Modern feel and very customizable and extendable

Top Pro

Vim plugin turns Atom into a modernized vim

Top Pro

Best support for Arduino with Platformio

Arduino is the most important platform for developing embedded systems. See More

Top Pro

Could also used as an IDE

Atom qualifies to be a good IDE because of the packages like linters, atom browser and hydrogen See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Dev platforms:Microsoft Windows®; macOS; Linux

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. See More

1159 382

score 32 · Answer 4

BBEdit

Top Pro

Stable development, been around for decades

Top Con

Featureless

Top Pro

Can open very large files

Top Con

Expensive

It's US$49.99 a single user license. See More

Top 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). See More

Top Pro

Just about every feature is already built in

No searching for plug-ins that may or may not work. See More

Top Pro

Great customer support

The developer is very responsive to bug reports and feature suggestions. See More

Top 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. See More

Specs

Platforms:OSX

License:Proprietary

Collaborative editing:No

Supported remote file editing protocols:Yes

Codeanywhere allows connecting and pulling development files from a Dropbox or a Google Drive account, making it easy to sync development files across devices. See More

32 8

score 235 · Answer 5

Codeanywhere

Top Pro

Dropbox and Google Drive support

Top Con

Does not jump to definitions

Unable to navigate the class definition or declaration. See More

Top Pro

BitBucket integration

Integrates with BitBucket and allows logging in with your BitBucket account. It's possible to launch Codeanywhere from within BitBucket's repo by adding Codeanywhere integration as an add-on. See More

Top Con

Web terminal window doesn't always run

In many instances, opening a terminal window in CodeEnvy would continue to load eternally. See More

Top Pro

Full terminal access

CodeAnywhere gives users full terminal access. See More

Top Con

No debugging options found (stepping through code)

Top Pro

Unlimited revisions

Each action performed on any file from any resource will be saved forever. See More

Top Con

Non free/libre (proprietary)

Top Pro

Github integration

Integrates with Github and allows logging in with your Github account. See More

Top Con

iOS app hasn't been updated in almost 3 years

Update as of August 20 2017 See More

Top Pro

Has mobile apps for all major mobile OSs

Codeanywhere has apps for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows, and Blackberry. See More

Top Con

Unclear which languages are supported

After ploughing through the website searching which languages are supported, no information could be found. See More

Top Pro

SFTP access

Allows connecting code via FTP, SFTP. See More

Top Con

Web editor on iPad is severely lacking

Codeanywhere relies on right click for major actions but doesn't support this interaction on iPad. Selecting listed Dev box URLs to access site is also unworkable in practice. iPad app allows the actions but has very limited set of Dev box controls. Using an external keyboard with the app can also be problematic as the arrow keys don't work. See More

Top Pro

Good editor

Supports multiple cursors. Has code completion for JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS and linting for JavaScript and CSS. See More

Top Con

SSH Port will be different each time you start your DevBox

Only for Always on DevBoxes will SSH ports remain static. See More

Top Pro

Allows inviting collaborators with a link

Codeanywhere has a feature called Share Links, that allows users to collaborate with others on their projects in real-time by simply sharing a link to their work. See More

Top Con

Does not have a function name list in side panel view

Top Pro

Multiple devboxes

DevBoxes are saveable, fully customizable development environments that run on either Open VZ or Docker and each has a dedicated amount of memory and disk space. Multiple devboxes can be run at the same time. See More

Top Con

Can't use SFTP with GIT

Top Pro

SSH Terminal

Even for 3rd party SSH connections. See More

Top Con

UI is not optimized and zoom is applied to the entire screen, rather than just the editor

The buttons are way too small. The UI feels washed out and opaque. Zoom (Ctrl++) is applied on the entire screen and not just on the editor. See More

Top Pro

Integration with DigitalOcean

CodeAnywhere recently partnered up with DigitalOcean. Now users can manage, spin up and provision DigitalOcean droplets all from the CodeAnywhere IDE. This is a great addition for both products, combining the power of an affordable host with the portability and power of CodeAnywhere IDE. See More

Top Con

2 Factor authentication is a joke

Top Pro

OneDrive integration

Similar to their Dropbox integration, it gives you full access. See More

Top Con

Customer support is virtually non-existent

Top Con

Very unstable

It's a nice IDE when it works, but suffers a lot from instability with things like being unable to save files, or not starting up, as well as crashes, etc. See More

Top Con

Confusing, not user friendly

It's so confusing versus other IDEs. Not recommended for newbies and programming students. See More

Specs

Cross Platform:yes

Multi Language Support:yes

235 59

score 1675 · Answer 6

Vim

Top 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. See More

Top Con

High effort to customize

A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Poor support for external tooling

Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms

This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth. See More

Top Pro

Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Con

Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box

A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY. See More

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes. See More

Top Con

User must remember commands instead of point at them in a menu

Top Pro

Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag. See More

Top Con

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Text editing in vim is awesome, 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. See More

Top Pro

Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example. See More

Top Con

Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Slow when opening files with very long lines

A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file. See More

Top Pro

Can never outgrow it

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh. See More

Top Con

No smooth scrolling

Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files. See More

Top Pro

Amazing extensibility

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more. See More

Top Con

Unintuitive mode switching

Top Pro

Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. See More

Top Con

Outdated UI

Top Pro

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient! See More

Top Pro

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm. See More

Top Pro

Has been supported for a long time and will be supported for many years to come

Top Pro

Flexible feature-set

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way. See More

Top Pro

Asynchronous I/O support

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type. See More

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Works on Android

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland

Top Pro

Useful undo features

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again. See More

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows

License:GPL

There is a free version available for download; it comes with a lot of features that you would find in an IDE. See More

1675 353

score 21 · Answer 7

Codelobster

Top Pro

Free version available

Top Con

You need to sign up to get a free serial number for the free version

In order to use the free version of Codelobster, you have to sign up and get a free account. This is done to help stopping piracy, but it's still pretty jarring when all you want to do is install a program. See More

Top Pro

Great HTML, CSS and JavaScript autocomplete

Codelobster has great HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP autocomplete See More

Top Con

Expensive

For the Pro version (which includes all the available plug-ins), the cost is $99.95. The lite version (without plugins) is $39.95. See More

Top Pro

Special support for JQuery through the jQuery plugin

The jQuery support (when you install the jQuery plugin) is great. It adds function definitions so that autocomplete works as intended. Furthermore, the IDE knows about the logic of the different libraries and frameworks and can understand that $(this) refers to a jQuery instance. See More

Top Pro

Portable option available

Codelobster IDE offers a lightweight, portable option. See More

Top Pro

Hovering over a CSS property shows you which browsers are supported by that property

This is a really nice feature as it immediately shows you the browsers that support a certain CSS property. Of course, it does not beat actual testing, but it's still a nice feature that saves developers a lot of time. See More

It's only available for Windows. See More

21 12

score 14 · Answer 8

PSPad

Top Pro

Integrated FTP client

Top Con

Windows only

Top Pro

Simple and small

PSPad is simple, small, and lightweight. It's also quite fast. See More

Top Con

No code folding

Does not support code folding. See More

Top Pro

Free

PSPad is completely free to download and use. See More

Top Con

No content assist

Top Pro

Code highlighting for many languages

PSPad supports code highlighting for several languages. See More

Top Pro

Accented words

In PSPad, the user can add accents to words. See More

Top Pro

Integrated HEX editor

Specs

Platforms:Windows

License:Freeware

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP

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. See More

14 2

score 378 · Answer 9

PhpStorm

Top Pro

Intelligent code completion

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. See More

Top Pro

Supports various PHP frameworks

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

Top Con

Pricey

Currently costs £78 but does not seem to offer much more than some free counterparts. See More

Top Pro

PHPDoc support

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

Top Con

Proprietary

It is not free software (free as in freedom). See More

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. See More

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. See More

Top 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). See More

Top Con

Interface is cluttered

Top Pro

Built-in debugger

Has built in support for Xdebug including remote debugging. See More

Top 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 See More

Top Pro

Phar package recognition

Phar support allows running complete applications out of .phar files. See More

Top Con

Bloated

Top Pro

Plugins allow futureproofing and customization

Active development work on plugins is always a plus, as it can extend the use of the IDE. See More

Top Con

Only one project can be opened at a time (

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Code Refactoring

Quickly rename classes, methods, and variables used across multiple files in the project. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

External command support

Ability to setup custom external commands, which is something inherited from eclipse and found lacking on netbeans. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Emmet integrated

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Integrated Vagrant support

It recognizes Vagrantfile and allows full control from the IDE. See More

Top 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.). See More

Top Pro

Responsive core developers

Top Pro

Excellent search tools

Especially the "find in path" feature that displays both results and file preview! See More

Specs

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. See More

378 52

score 472 · Answer 10

Spacemacs

Top Pro

Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

Top 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 delayed auto-loading of packages in unpredictable order, different modes for different file types, 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Community-driven configuration

Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Above average documentation quality

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

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Completely configured out of the box

Stuff like version control, file management, good default theme are all configured out of the box. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Fast-paced development

New functionalities and fixes are added to Spacemacs every day, while release cycles are short. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Remote file editing

Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely. See More

Top Pro

Offers a number of practical features

Spacemacs has some great features for taking notes, tracking to-do lists, and tracking time. See More

Top Pro

Manage many code bases easily

Top Pro

LaTeX support

LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more. See More

Top Pro

Great note-taking and agenda "app" built-in

Allows for great organization applications that can be saved in future-proof format, plain text, can be integrated with LaTeX, markdown, HTML, Literate Programming and be committed to source control. See More

Top Pro

Can work in terminal mode

Sometimes you only have terminal access, over ssh or something. See More

Top Pro

Works well with Common Lisp

Top Pro

Daemon support

Has great daemon support, which can mitigate the issue of slow startup. See More

Top Pro

Easily extended with community plugins

Top Pro

Great CFEngine support

Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions. See More

Top Pro

Manage R files easily

Top Pro

Great Clojure support

Top Pro

Excellent support for Elixir programming language

Elixir layer which uses the Alchemist package is the best way to edit Elixir code out there. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

License:GPLv3

PyCharm has CVS, Git, Subversion and Mercurial integration. See More

472 62

score 263 · Answer 11

PyCharm Professional Edition

Top Pro

Version control integration

Top Con

Very high memory usage

Memory usage is usually anywhere around 1-2GB and possibly larger with larger projects See More

Top Pro

Catches run-time information when running the code

PyCharm can leverage run-time information when running your application with the built-in debugger to figure out what types can possibly be passed to which functions, etc. See More

Top Con

Not suitable to edit project's files written in other languages

There is a high variety of support for a lot of languages like markdown etc. Not for Java and so on, but it is a Python IDE. See More

Top Pro

One of the best autocompletion engines around

PyCharm has two types of autocompletion: structural completion and word expansion. Structural autocompletion makes predictions based on its understanding of Python and JavaScript objects, 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. See More

Top Con

Some relatively basic functionality requires paid license

JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS, SQL requires a paid license. Also, all Python frameworks require a paid license. See More

Top Pro

Great pip support

PyCharm offers great pip integration. When opening a project it automatically checks for a requirements.txt file in the root of the project. If it's found, it checks if all the libraries are available in the interpreter. If one or more libraries are missing, it issues a warning and asks whether you want to install any missing libraries. See More

Top Con

Vim mode is limited

Top Pro

Excellent integration with debugging tools

All the debugging can be done inside the IDE. Breakpoints in the code can be added using keyboard shortcuts or the mouse. When the code is executed through the debugger a toolbar pops up with all the relevant context needed for the debugging process. The whole process is smooth and painless and you don't even have to switch windows to do the debugging. See More

Top Con

Rendering is awful

Top Pro

Free version available

There's a community edition (with limited features) that's free to use. You can also get a 30-day trial of the Professional edition. See More

Top Con

Odd Autosave "feature", can't be disabled fully

PyCharm automatically saves your files for you, always, without telling you. You can't disable this. There's a way to indicate if a file has been modified via an indicator in the tab (not enabled by default - why?). If you exit it won't ask you if you want to save the modified file. Totally unintuitive and contrary to all other established workflows. It's ok to try something new, but give users the option to have the "normal" behaviour of any other IDE/editor out there. Can be a deal breaker for those that need to know/have control over when they save their files. (PyCharm offers a history to undo the automatic save, but why force a user to undo something with extra steps that shouldn't have happened in the first place?) See More

Top Pro

Great for navigating large codebases

PyCharm has amazing code navigation implementations. It supports both goto symbol and goto declaration. The former finds classes, variables, functions, etc by name. While the latter is used by moving the cursor on top of a symbol and by using the mouse or a keyboard combination it finds the declaration of that symbol and takes you there. Both of these features are extremely helpful when consulting large code-bases and when trying to understand an API written by someone else. See More

Top Con

Little native desktop integration

If you use Linux with Gnome or KDE, PyCharm does relatively little to integrate into your local desktop environment See More

Top Pro

Excellent refactoring support

There are many refactoring options including renaming and changing signature across entire projects. It also includes the an ability to preview changes before committing and exclude anything unwanted. See More

Top Con

Assinine licensing scheme

JetBrains licensing, especially if you have multiple products, is a blocker. You just can't a fixed line-item price (for departmental budgeting) for their licenses. See More

Top Pro

Supports installing third party libraries

No need to go to the command line to download a new package, PyCharm has an easy system to browse, download, and update third party packages. See More

Top Con

It cannot reindex on the fly packages installed from git source

If you've installed a package with the command: pip install -e git+https://pass@github.com/me/package.git@0.0.3#egg=package you have two options available to make PyCharm update/see it: restart PyCharm invalidate caches See More

Top Pro

Free student access to Professional Edition

With a valid .edu address students can register to use the Professional edition and enjoy all the perks of the full paid version for free. Though it should be mentioned that the with the free student acess you cannot use PyCharm for any commercial purposes, even accepting donations for an open source project. See More

Top Con

Not possible to run scripts in a single console

Top Pro

Automatically figures out what test to run based on the method the cursor rests at a given time

PyCharm, based on what method or class the cursor rests, can figure out what tests to run and perform them with a keyboard shortcut or two, without breaking up the flow and need to switch to a command line interface. See More

Top Con

Sometimes all autocomplete stuff dies with over 9k Java exceptions with no visible reason

Top Pro

Vim mode for people used to Vim commands

IdeaVim supports motion keys, insert mode commands, marks, registers, visual mode commands, vim regexps, key mapping, macros, digraphs, some ex and :set commands. You can find a full comparison in the IdeaVim reference manual. See More

Top Pro

Has a lot of plugins

PyCharm offers a high variety of plugins like Pylin, Mypy etc. covering all the above mentioned. Plus it has a built-in support to detect wrong formatted/named things (inspection). See More

Top Pro

Built-in Django support

Pycharm has excellent django support, from templating to management commands, it has it all. See More

Top Pro

Sophisticated static analysis tools

Top Pro

Remote debugging over ssh coupled with automatic deployment creates a streamlined workflow

The professional version allows remote debugging over ssh, which together with automatic deployment creates a streamlined workflow. See More

Top Pro

Easy to optimize code with built-in profiling tools

If you have a yappi profiler installed on your interpreter, PyCharm starts the profiling session with it by default, otherwise it uses the standard cProfile profiler. See More

Top Pro

Amazing direct database integration

Pycharm supports SQLlite, PostgresQL, Mysql, etc out of the box and is integrated very nicely with Pycharm. Making database modifications could never have been easier as changing a cell value and committing the changes straight from pycharm. See More

Specs

Price:$200/years

Cross Platform:Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD

Auto Complete:Yes

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

263 64

score 382 · Answer 12

NetBeans

Top Pro

Multiple revision control system integration

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. See More

Top Pro

Frameworks support

Supports Symfony1, Symfony2,Yii2 & Zend frameworks. See More

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. See More

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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

PHPUnit support

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

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Composer commands inside IDE

The most used composer commands can be done directly from IDE. See More

Top Con

Tries to do everything for you and gets it wrong too many times

Top Pro

Best for PHP, HTML5 Apps Developemt

Top Con

Linux version lacks HDPI support

Top Pro

FTP/SFTP synchronization

Supports synchronization with projects stored remotely through FTP or SFTP. See More

Top Pro

Supports community plugins

NetBeans can be extended beyond the basic tool that you get out of the box through community made custom plugins. See More

Top Pro

Accelerated HTML5 development support

Top Pro

Less and Sass Compiler support

Top Pro

Linux terminal inside IDE

You can run Linux terminal inside the IDE. See More

Top Pro

Supports Twig templates

NetBeans provides code completion and documentation for all Twig elements. See More

Top Pro

ApiGen and PHPDoc support

Supports documentation generation through ApiGen and PHPDoc. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

PHPstan support

Supports static code analysis with phpstan See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Bower support

Top Pro

Supports Smarty

Supports Smarty Template Engine right out of the box. See More

Top Pro

JMeter benchmarking tool support

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes

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

382 97

score 394 · Answer 13

Notepad++

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages

Top Con

Windows-only

While it can run in Wine, it is native only to Windows. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Outdated UI

Only the text area can be themed, and it doesn't have as many features as browser-based text areas. See More

Top Pro

Extendable via plugins

A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained. See More

Top Con

Limited new syntax support for new languages

It may be hard to find good plugins for relatively new languages. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Session backups not enabled by default

Unsaved tabs will be lost when Npp crashes, unless you first enable the session backup option. See More

Top Pro

Free under GPL

Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Persistent documents, even after exiting the application

If you close Notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Split screen

The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

User defined language syntax support

You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) . See More

Top Pro

Easy to use and admin

Very easy to use and personalize. See More

Top Pro

Supports Markdown

If you have the Plugin Manager installed you can search for MarkdownViewer++ and install it via that plugin. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

License:GPL

Auto Complete:Yes

Textastic is for Mac only. See More

394 129

score 17 · Answer 14

Textastic

Top Pro

iOS version available

Top Con

Mac only

Top Pro

Supports 80 source code and markup languages

Textastic has support for several script and markup languages. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Textastic is a proprietary software and needs a license which costs $7.99. See More

Top Pro

Very fast

There's no need for hundreds of modules to be loaded on every start of Textastic. It's perfect for the fast editing of files. See More

Top Pro

Supports online sync

Textastic can sync with iCloud documents. See More

Top Pro

Code completion

Specs

17 8

score 49 · Answer 15

TextMate

Top Pro

Extensible

TextMate has an extensive library of plugins which can be further extended to make it even more powerful. See More

Top Con

OS X only

TextMate is for OSX only. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Textmate is open source and hosted on GitHub. See More

Top Pro

Snippets

Top Pro

Lightweight footprint

It's lightweight footprint makes it extremely fast to load and use. See More

Top Pro

Multi line select and editing

Top Pro

OS X only (native)

Specs

Platforms:OSX

License:GPL

Collaborative editing:No

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP; SFTP

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. See More

49 23

score 220 · Answer 16

Brackets

Top Pro

Built-in browser live-updating

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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

Brackets is entirely free and open source. See More

Top Con

Slow

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. See More

Top 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> See More

Top Pro

Actively developed

Brackets is being actively maintained and developed. See More

Top Pro

Popup previews

Hovering over colors hex codes or image paths will pop up previews of corresponding colors and images. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Brackets is easy on memory usage and it starts up quickly. See More

Top Pro

Drag and drop support

Brackets supports drag and drop of text, as well as multi / rectangular selection. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Vim mode

Vim-style editing is already built in the text editor. See More

Top 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. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:MIT

Collaborative editing:No

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP (plug-in)