What are the best color themes for text editors?

Question

50

Options
Considered

1.5K

User
Recs.

Jul 21, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 3 of 48 OptionsWhy?

Best color themes for text editors	Price	Last Updated
96 Tomorrow Theme	-	Jul 21, 2021
92 Gruvbox	Free	Jun 6, 2021
91 Dracula	-	Jul 20, 2021
88 Base16 - Eighties Dark	-	Jun 1, 2021
88 Ayu	-	Jun 30, 2021

See Full List

Gruvbox

Top Pro

Very easy on the eyes

Both the light and dark version have a reddish background for a consistent look when toggling between them. See More

Top Con

No list of supported editors

Tried to find out which editors are supported, but could not find the information. See More

EnergeticHuixtocihuatl's Experience

In my personal experience, gruvbox results in the most careful and detailed theme of how many I have tried. Its color scheme, the dozens of options to personalize it and, above all, its simplicity and minimalism have me in love for more than two years. See More

Top Pro

Have light and dark version

Dark background has brown-yellowish retro colors, light background is yellowish with pastel highlights. See More

Top Pro

Multiple contrast options

Three different variants are available, each with different contrasts. See More

Top Pro

Made ready for multiple text-editors

Ports for Atom, Sublime, TextMate and Emacs and other text editors are available. For a full list of available ports. If you are using a Jetbrains IDE. See More

Top Pro

You can go all day with Gruvbox

Top Pro

It can be customized in detail

Size of the tabs, icons of file types, contrast of the color schemes, accented colors, indentation in the sidebar, sizes of the status bar and dozens more. See More

See All

Dracula

Top Pro

Available for many popular editors, terminals, etc.

Sublime, Atom, Vim, iTerm, Terminal.app, Zsh, Slack, TextMate, Emacs, Visual Studio Code/Visual Studio, Xcode, IntelliJ, and more. See More

Top Con

Consistency

Some colors are too vibrant and bright. See More

Yuriy Kazmirchuk's Experience

Excellent theme!!! After trying different other themes, I feel very comfortable with this one. The contrasts are exactly as I like and can easily read. And it is OK for bigger more or less bright displays. Also, the availability of this theme is huge!!! 150+ apps. I can get it for my other apps and have exactly the same experience all the time. See More

Top Pro

Well designed

Top Con

Hard on eyes

HelpfulMarduk's Experience

great in lots languages, even in markdown See More

Top Pro

Great in lots of languages

Even for Markdown. See More

FantasticMeretseger's Experience

It is just so relaxing, not distracting. I can focus on my work. 10/10 See More

Top Pro

Perfect color pitch

Colors are perfectly pitched, easy to focus on scripts and shells. See More

See All

45 Other Options Considered

One Dark

Top Pro

Available for Intellij IDEA

Top Con

Ports to other applications are not always accurate.

RobustScylla's Experience

Very comfortable to the eye. See More

Top Pro

Available for vim

Top Con

Kind of fadey

The colors aren't that bright (which may be good for some people). See More

Top Pro

Available for Atom clones and Sublime

Possibly for others too This theme is a default one for Atom text editor. See More

Top Pro

Available on a wide range of applications

KDE Plasma, VsCode etc... See More

Top Pro

Colors are calm and easy to distinguish

Its wide hue range with good saturation/value use make a good enough contrast to skim the code fastly and not too vibrant to kill your eyes. See More

Top Pro

Calm blue background

If used with flux, it turns into warm gray during night. See More

Top Pro

Available as a base16 theme

Top Pro

Includes GUI themes

See All

Molokai

Top Pro

Looks great

Top Con

That pink

The pink color is too vibrant if compared with others. It pops out from context and may blend with red errors in some editors. See More

TalentedFand's Experience

Color palette is great with high contrasty colors. See More

Top Pro

One of the most common dark themes

Default for Sublime Text, avaialble on IntelliJ products and Eclipse via plug-in. Usually ranked in top 3 of highest downloaded theme for a IDE. See More

Top Con

Too much contrast

Top Pro

Strong enough contrast

Without being fully black on white (which is good on modern already very contrasted screens) it remains pretty dark compared to many alternatives; making it more readable. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install with Vundle

See All

Material Color Scheme

Top Pro

Theme support for Sublime Text and Atom

Solarized Dark

Top Pro

There are versions for a lot of applications or it's easy to make your own

There are ready-made packages for Vim, IntelliJ, Emacs, iTerm, etc. If your app isn't supported the website explains clearly what colors are used, so it should be easy to wrap up your own. See More

Top Con

Too much blue

People caring about the color intensity in their screens, will notice that this theme is not useful for night use. If you use software like Flux to dim the blues in your screen this theme loses it's enchant. See More

RealisticAequitas's Experience

Looks nice and does not burden your eyes at all. See More

Top Pro

It seems that is has been given the most thought

Judging from the description that has been given by the author, it seems that this color scheme has been designed with huge background knowledge about colors and relations between them. See More

Top Con

Low contrast

Comments for example, has very low contrast against the background. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

When it comes to color schemes it's silly to pretend that one is objectively better than another. Solarized Dark instantly felt both comfortable and attractive to me and I have yet to find one that's superior to me in either regard. See More

Top Pro

It's always easy on the eyes

Even after a long day. See More

Top Con

Vanilla version doesn't work with htop

Half of the usernames in htop have the same color as the background. One has to use a patched version of htop. See More

Top Pro

Works well with multiple fonts

Since Solarized has pretty good color separation it's easier to distinguish both thin and bold fonts. See More

See All

Railscast

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting makes it easy to see block indentations in Ruby code

Obviously Railscast was designed for Ruby. It's easy to see where your code blocks begin and end. See More

Monokai

Top Pro

The best color scheme in sublime

Top Con

The "neon" feel gets old after a while

PatientMeskhenet's Experience

goes well with flux See More

Top Pro

Good contrast

Top Pro

Easy on the eyes

Top Pro

Neutral background

See All

Leuven

Top Pro

Helpful for people with astigmatism

People with astigmatism prefer the bright white background since the extra light causes your pupils to contract, which makes your focus sharper. See More

Top Con

May cause eye strain

People with blue-light sensitivity may prefer a dark theme. See More

gilch's Experience

This is my secondary theme for Spacemacs. I usually use Noctilux, but when I need a light theme due to glare (or when switching focus among other light windows), I switch to Leuven. It reminds me of the default themes of the old Java IDEs I used in school, so it feels familiar. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for people with deuteranomaly

Leuven is a high-contrast theme preferring blue hues to red ones which makes it easier for people with deuteranomaly (most common form of red-green blindness) to distinguish different syntactical elements. See More

See All

Spacemacs-theme

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score 401 · Accepted Answer

Tomorrow Theme

Top Pro

Eases visual processing

Different colors within the same color scheme to quickly distinguish the layout (px, %, ..) and other declaration blocks from the colors (background-color; color); that eases the visual processing, thus increases reading speed, while reading CSS. See More

ReveredArnapkapfaaluk's Experience

gggggoooooooodo See More

Top Pro

Light & dark themes

Dark theme does a good job of contrasting kvps. See More

Top Pro

Comes in 5 different variants

Comes in 5 different variations: Tomorrow, Tomorrow Night, Tomorrow Eighties, Tomorrow Blue and Tomorrow Night Bright. See More

Top Pro

There are versions for a lot of applications or it's easy to make your own

There are ready-made packages for Vim, IntelliJ, Emacs, iTerm, etc. If your app isn't supported the website explains clearly what colors are used, so it should be easy to wrap up your own. See More

Top Pro

Notepad++

Although not mentioned in the list of supported editors, on GitHub you can find a folder Notepad++ with xml files. Sadly it does not seem to work with newer Notepad++ versions ... See More

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The Best 3 of 48 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Tomorrow Theme

My Recommendation for Tomorrow Theme

Eases visual processing

Light & dark themes

Comes in 5 different variants

There are versions for a lot of applications or it's easy to make your own

Notepad++

My Recommendation for Gruvbox

My Recommendation for Gruvbox

Very easy on the eyes

No list of supported editors

Have light and dark version

Multiple contrast options

Made ready for multiple text-editors

You can go all day with Gruvbox

It can be customized in detail

My Recommendation for Dracula

My Recommendation for Dracula

Available for many popular editors, terminals, etc.

Consistency

Well designed

Hard on eyes

Great in lots of languages

Perfect color pitch

45 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Base16 - Eighties Dark

My Recommendation for Base16 - Eighties Dark

Balanced and simple

Doesn't appear to support new HTML5 tags

My Recommendation for Ayu

My Recommendation for Ayu

Comes in three variants

My Recommendation for Spacegray

My Recommendation for Spacegray

Balanced contrast

Ported to Atom

Ported to Sublime Text

My Recommendation for One Dark

My Recommendation for One Dark

Available for Intellij IDEA

Ports to other applications are not always accurate.

Available for vim

Kind of fadey

Available for Atom clones and Sublime

Available on a wide range of applications

Colors are calm and easy to distinguish

Calm blue background

Available as a base16 theme

Includes GUI themes

My Recommendation for Molokai

My Recommendation for Molokai

Looks great

That pink

One of the most common dark themes

Too much contrast

Strong enough contrast

Easy to install with Vundle

My Recommendation for Zenburn

My Recommendation for Zenburn

Exceptionally easy for your eyes

Quite low in contrast

Low contrast color theme

Ported to a lot of apps and software

My Recommendation for Solarized Light

My Recommendation for Solarized Light

Easy on the eyes

Low contrast

Available for lots of editors, IDE, even terminal emulators

Lighter colors make it more energy efficient with LCD screens

My Recommendation for Material Color Scheme

My Recommendation for Material Color Scheme

Theme support for Sublime Text and Atom

My Recommendation for Solarized Dark

My Recommendation for Solarized Dark

There are versions for a lot of applications or it's easy to make your own

Too much blue

It seems that is has been given the most thought

Low contrast

It's always easy on the eyes