What are the best IDEs for Node.js?

Windows, Linux, and macOS. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

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

KindMoneta's Experience

it is best See More

Top Pro

IntelliSense

One of Visual Studio's flagship feature, Visual Studio Code offers intelligent code-completion, suggestions and many more. 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

Paulo Henrique's Experience

It's so light and fast, and it doesn't look like those big and slow old IDEs like Eclipse. See More

Top Pro

Open source

The VS Code source code is open-sourced under the MIT License. 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

ShrewdAscalaphus's Experience

Using it for several hours. Other options were - WebStorm and NetBeans. See More

Top Pro

Free

Offers all things that a developer needs freely. 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. Alternatively, there are Git extensions to overcome this limitations as well. See More

ReverentSpandaramet's Experience

good See More

Top Pro

Large selection of extensions

Already a large and growing library of extensions. 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

PerfectIucharba's Experience

Pros: FREE, Lightweight , Has a lot of extensions , Easy to debug , Embedded terminal , Fast Cons: Not a complete IDE See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control. See More

Top Con

Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags

StrongEuterpe's Experience

cool ide See More

Top Pro

Integrated terminal

Visual Studio Code comes with an Integrated Terminal accessible via a keyboard shortcut as part of the Quick-access panel. 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

PreciseCicolluis's Experience

Its cool... See More

Top Pro

Extensions/Add-ons

VS Code has a very large add-on community. There are hundreds of valuable extensions available for many languages as well as support for database platforms. There are also extensions for code-completion, icons, you name it. 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

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

Lightweight

As minimalist as Atom or even faster. See More

Top Pro

Monthly updates

VS Code is updated monthly with new features and bug fixes. Nightly if you use the Insider's Build! See More

Top Pro

Great performance

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

Top Pro

Customizable keybindings

Like any other editor, Visual Studio Code's keybindings can be tailored to your liking. 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 Pro

Customizable

Excellent package management system. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plugins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plugins available to extend its functionality. 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 Pro

RTL languages support

It supports RTL languages pretty well while most of other IDE's do not support it. See More

Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. 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

Huge community behind it

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

Top Pro

Under 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 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

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 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

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. 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

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

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

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

score 43 · Answer 2

Vim

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Top Con

Arcane keycommands

You can function without using the arcane key commands but the most power in this editor are the key commands. See More

Elias Van Ootegem's Experience

This is a tired old argument, bordering on a cliché, but it's true: If you get used to vim, it becomes your weapon of choice no matter what language you code in. It's been around for ages, and remains popular to this very day, with a user base that is at times more annoying than evangelical christians telling you you're a sodomite who will burn in hell lest you turn to the Lord. The difference is: Vim is real, you can turn to Vim now, and find out for yourself Vim wants to have a personal relationship with You. Seriously though: vim is the daddy. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

Extension language:Vim

License:Vim License

Price:0

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

dotmavriq's Experience

Vim is worth every single second spent inside of it, it transcends simple IDE-style workflows. It takes time but once things settle you really save time using it. See More

Top Pro

Free and cross-platform

Vim is standard on every Unix system by default (including Mac). It's easy and free to install on Windows. It's very light. Can customize the highlighting. Hands never have to leave the keyboard. See More

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 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 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 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 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 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 Pro

Free and open-source software

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

Top Pro

By default in Linux

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 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 Pro

Vim encourages discipline

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

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

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 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 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 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 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

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

Works on Android

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

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

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

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

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

This feature is extremely helpful in projects where time is not a luxury that you have. Webstorm will auto complete JS variables, keywords, methods, functions and parameters. Not only that, Webstorm can also offer completion from methods and functions that are in any external libraries or frameworks. See More

score 172 · Answer 3

WebStorm

Top Pro

Intelligent code completion

Top Con

Not free for commercial use

A paid license is required to use WebStorm for commercial use. The license terms have changed (Nov 2015) and now require a subscription (per year: $59 personal, $129 for companies). Students can obtain a free non-commercial, educational license good for 1 year. See More

greyfox's Experience

With Webstorm you wont spend your days trying to fix your code editor or install half-baked extensions that almost do what you want. With Webstorm everything just works. And works really well. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

In today's day and age it is important not only to write code that works, but also code that is maintainable in the future. To make sure your code can be easily maintained, you must first be sure to make it is clean and tidy. This is the part where WebStorm really helps you, it automatically refactors your code by performing on it functions such as extraction of variables, moving files, inline variable extraction etc. All these make sure your code is clean and safe. See More

Top Pro

Code refactoring support

Top Con

Slow performance occasionally

WebStorm can sometimes choke all cores of the CPU. There are numerous reports of high CPU usage. See More

Kuntal Das's Experience

good See More

Top Pro

Powerful git and GitHub integration

WebStorm has a powerful visual git tool, allowing easy commits, visual diffing, merging, push/pull, rebasing and inspecting the VCS history of a project. GitHub is supported natively - you can check out a project directly from GitHub. See More

Top Con

Not open source

This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified, freely distributed, or trusted for security. See More

IntellectualXantico's Experience

bloated and propietary See More

Top Pro

Built-in web server

WebStorm has a built-in webserver that allows you to run projects from http://localhost:63342/ProjectName. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

SmartDiana's Experience

Though this is a paid app and costs $59 for a year for individual you do get a fall back license (a perpetual license) immediately for the version at the time of the 1 year payment. The quality features of WebStorm is worth the money. See More

Top Pro

Node.js integration

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

Top Con

Doesn't support third-party libraries' auto-complete out of the box

At least you can download TypeScript community stubs to use auto-complete for external libraries, like Koa. See More

Top Pro

Efficient and effective

Top Con

Very bulky

Top Pro

Integrated code quality tools

WebStorm comes bundled with JSHint, JSLint JavaScript linters. JSCS, ESLint as well as 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 viewing suggested fixes. See More

Top Con

Poor usability on option and menu navigation

You need to press a combination of keys or navigate through different menu levels to carry out the two most common things a developer does. For example, to run your code, the default is Shift+F10. To go to definition, you need to click on "Navigation" first. There is no sense to this: being forced to press a combination of keys hundreds of times or navigating through different menus can be a waste of time. See More

Top Pro

Server and client-side debugger

WebStorm has a powerful debugger, with support for conditional breakpoints. See More

Top Con

Occasional slow performance

WebStorm can sometimes choke all cores of the CPU. There are numerous reports of high CPU usage. See More

Top Pro

Maintains a local history

The local history feature in Webstorm tracks all your local changes in the source code that you are making. You can use it to view changes that you've made to your code and roll back whenever necessary. See More

Top Con

Can't open multiple projects in a single instance

The only way to open multiple projects is to run a new instance of WebStorm which is not ideal. WebStorm can use up to 1-1.5 GB of memory. See More

Top Pro

Supports many JavaScript frameworks

WebStorm includes support for Meteor, Angular, and React. See More

Top Con

Bad default options compared to the competition

Examples are an unreasonably low number of undo steps and automatic saving (which causes webpack dev server to bundle VERY frequently). See More

Top Pro

Built-in support for JavaScript task runners

WebStorm has support for Grunt and Gulp task runners. See More

Top Con

Constantly trailing behind on support for its main features

The Jetbrains team do an admirable job attempting to keep up with support for the features they wrap, but they are running an un-winnable race. For example, WebStorm 11.0.2 hangs when trying to debug NodeJS 5.0+ projects (30+ seconds before hitting breakpoint). By the time they fix it, 5.1 will be out and something else will break. See More

Top Pro

Support for all major VCS systems

Webstorm supports not just Git and Merculiar, but Subversion, CVS, and Perforce as well. See More

Top Con

Proprietary file dialogs

Webstorm doesn't use the native Windows and OSX file dialogs, which makes it more of a hassle to open projects. For instance, you don't have access to your favorite folders on the left-hand side in their custom file dialogs. See More

Top Pro

Reduces the amount of repetitive code that has to be written with code snippets

WebStorm includes a feature called Live Templates. Live Templates are predefined code snippets that can include variables. They're intended to increase productivity by reducing the amount of repetitive code that has to be written. See More

Top Con

You may have to fiddle with the JVM memory settings in configuration files

To get it to run properly, you have to edit the JVM memory settings when you use Node.js. Node.js makes the small JS project you have into a "large" project that requires more memory. See More

Top Pro

Free for open-source development and students

Top Con

Non-native filesystem causes issues

The Java wrapper around the filesystem doesn't actively watch for file changes (by, for example, using the fsevents api on OS X), and as a result can become easily desynchronised from the actual filesystem. If you have an external tool acting on your project (such as a gulp task or a third-party Git client), what you see in the file browser or in open tabs becomes out-of-date. There's a feature in the context-menu for manually synchronising directories with their real filesystem equivalent, but this shouldn't be necessary and is annoying to do. You usually remember to do that anyway after you've been trying to track down a bug on a line of JavaScript that Webstorm says doesn't exist for the last two hours. It should be noted though that this is easily remedied by going to File/Settings/System Settings and checking the "Synchronize Files on frame or editor tab activation" option. It's also recommended to more explicitly represent your workflow within WebStorm itself. Most external tools/tasks can be handled with WebStorm. And if it's not in a plug-in, then you can handle it with the File Watchers. See More

Top Pro

Built-in terminal/run tools

Add your own run methods or just run your apps straight from the terminal. See More

Top Con

Plug-in ecosystem isn't robust

Every framework or extension with any popularity whatsoever will have a plugin for VS Code. Sometimes they'll still support Atom. Only one in twenty will have native support for WebStorm. If you want support for the latest libraries, you won't get it in WebStorm. See More

Top Pro

Has a built-in terminal

The IDE comes with a built-in terminal, a feature lacking in some lighter editors. See More

Top Pro

Webpack support

Assists with configuration and understands module resolution. See More

Top Pro

Typescript support

WebStorm offers typescript support for building typed JavaScript applications which improves refactoring and code completion, as well as helping to find bugs. See More

Top Pro

Compilers for compile-to-JavaScript languages

WebStorm has built-in support for TypeScript, CoffeeScript and Dart. See More

Top Pro

Support for Karma test runner

Top Pro

Supports a wide range of plug-ins

Top Pro

Cordova support

Cordova allows building native mobile applications via HTML, CSS and JavaScript. See More

Top Pro

Ability to base hot keys on previously used IDEs

When you install WebStorm, it allows you to choose from other IDE's for it to base it's hot keys on. So if you are switching from another IDE it makes it a very easy transition and productivity is not adversely affected by having to learn new hot keys. See More

Top Pro

CSS pre-processor support

WebStorm has built-in support for Sass. See More

Top Pro

No need to search for additional plugins

You don't have to waste time searching for plugins, it's "All included". See More

Top Pro

Theme support / tweaking

The theme is very easy to customize to your liking. You can change font-size, colors, highlighting colors, and more. See More

Top Pro

Auto sync settings across team / machines / platforms

With the settings repository, you can easily enforce your development standards. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and editing

Top Pro

Low memory use

It may seem like a complex IDE and it does have a lot of functionality, yet it uses way less RAM than barebones-looking, Electron-based IDEs. See More

Top Pro

Special icons for most filetypes in project list

Webstorm comes with icons for many filetypes which makes it easier to find what you're looking for in the project list. See More

Top Pro

Really good configurable code formatting

This integrates with other community tools like ESLint and editorconfig. See More

Top Pro

Powerful Code Templates

Code Templates are powered by Apache VTL (Velocity Template Language) and allow for includes, custom variables, conditional blocks, iterators, and live templates. See More

Top Pro

Coffeescript support

Autocompletion, syntax-highlighting. See More

Top Pro

Interactive theme (color scheme) editor

Makes adjusting an existing or creating new themes a breeze. Especially due to things like inheritance, as well as easily exporting/distributing/importing the color settings which really only store where on deviates from the defaults (thus the resulting files are very small and relatively human-readable). See More

Top Pro

Different configurations for different projects

It is able to specify for example node versions, which will be used to run task for current project. See More

Top Pro

Coffeescript support

Autocompletion, syntax-highlighting. See More

Top Pro

Gulp support

Top Pro

Dart language support

Autocompletion, syntax-highlighting, refactoring, and pub integration for Dart are supported in WebStorm. See More

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

score 50 · Answer 4

Atom

Top Pro

Extendable

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

Dashon Hawkins's Experience

It is a great text editor that has vastly improved and is rapidly challenging VS Code now that Facebook has begun ot integrate it's IDE platform into its ecosystem. It is already built on top of Electron and I could say that it pretty much has all the plugins that VS Code has at this point. Its main drawback is that its load performance on startup tends to slow down after you add and are using a lot of plugins simultaneously. Some people are just opinionated when it comes to the 1st thing that they like and hold onto it for dear life. Check out Atom for about a week with the IDE's and see how well you like it. It may change the way that you look at this text editor. See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes (plugin)

Bracket Matching:Yes (plugin)

The editor is built on top of Node. As such anything that can be done in Node can be done in the editor. See More

Top Pro

Node.js integration

Top Con

Slow

Atom is not a native application. As such performance has gotten a lot better even though it is still a little laggy as compared to VS Code and the lag is more noticeable on really complex large projects that have 10's of thousands of lines of code. If you have a bunch of active plugins (> 25) it also opens a surprising amount of sub-processes and leaks a considerable amount of memory, thus taking it a few extra seconds of time to load. And sometimes there can be a glitch (an easy fix if you look at the pull requests) that won't allow you to do a complete update because of how it doesn't find the correct path in the /Bin but that happens in 2 out of 10 installs at best. See More

Top Pro

Built in package management

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

Top Con

Slows down exponentially with plugins

Extending it needs sacrificing responsiveness. See More

Top Pro

Free

Atom is completely free to use. 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

Open source

Free, open source and written in C++, LESS and CoffeeScript. See More

Top Con

Very slow startup time

Atom is very slow to start up, which is a big disadvantage if you are accustomed to using it to make quick changes on your files. 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 Pro

Many useful plugins for serving what you need

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

Top Pro

Command Palette

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

Top Pro

Fully integrated with Git

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

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Runs on Mac, Windows, Linux. 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 and the second one 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 Pro

Multi-line select

Multiple cursors & column selection allow versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated add the next occurence 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 selecting vertically. See More

Top Pro

HiDPI support

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

Top Pro

Themes

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

Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

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

Vim plugin turns Atom into a modernized vim

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 Pro

Best support for Arduino with Platformio

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

Top Pro

Could also be used as an IDE

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

Top Pro

Modern feel and very customizable and extendable

Distraction-free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code. See More

score 29 · Answer 5

Sublime Text

Top Pro

Distraction free editing mode

Top Con

Not a full IDE

It does not necessarily function on a project level See More

CredibleAlQaum's Experience

Amazing experience, speed, easy, ease of use, stable, etc... It's a mini IDE. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be. See More

Top Pro

Has tons of plugins available

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Multiple languages are supported

Top Con

Interruption while work

"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Annoying whitespace management

All too often it does the wrong thing with indentation on otherwise blank lines. See More

Top Pro

Consistent cross-platform

Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Paid

Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still having to pay for it is definitely a Con. See More

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. See More

Top Con

No printing of files

Sublime Texts offers no way of printing the files it edits. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Offers a command palette

Command Palette allows for fuzzy searching all available settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Direct server upload

Provides command line shortcut for server upload. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic Build System

Choose from many build systems or craft your own. See More

Top Pro

Portable settings

Settings are modular and can be shared. See More

Top Pro

Installable package manager

The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get started

All you need to do when starting up is to install a package manager and modify user configuration. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

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

You can package up custom commands with the workspace and then use them (or share them) with everyone else. See More

score 47 · Answer 6

Eclipse Che

Top Pro

Custom commands

Top Con

Slow runtime

Online IDE is much slower than the desktop one. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Docker runtimes

You can choose from pre-configured environments for Java, Javascript, C++, PHP, C#, etc... or you can define your own by dropping in a Dockerfile - makes it easy for simple and complex projects. See More

Top Con

Requires Docker

Docker requirement also is a CON for people who have Home editions of Windows 10 and so have hurdles applied since Docker is not Windows 10 Home edition friendly. However, Docker Toolbox can be used to mitigate the limitations said Windows 10 version. See More

Top Pro

Git and SVN support

Projects can be easily imported from any Git or Svn repository hosting service. See More

Top Pro

SSH and terminal support

Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so that you can use a desktop IDE is handy. See More

Top Pro

Open source

It's open source under the Eclipse Foundation using a (friendly) EPL 1.0 license. See More

Top Pro

Application previews

Che does a nice job to automatically map the service:port running in a Docker container (e.g. tomcat on 8080) to the Docker port it actually uses (something in the ephemeral range). It is possible that you never need to figure that out as it's just made available when you run your server. See More

Top Pro

Side-by-side Git Diff

You can do line-by-line comparisons between two git commits. Makes it really easy to spot changes. See More

Top Pro

Portable workspaces

The workspace in Che includes project sources, IDE and the runtime. So if you hand your Che workspace definition to another user and they execute it they will get everything they need to build, run and debug the project. Also the runtime is in a Docker container so it will work even if the second user is on a different OS than the original user who shared their workspace with them. Also the runtime is in a Docker container so it will work even if the second user is on a different OS than the original user who shared their workspace with them. See More

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

score 38 · Answer 7

NetBeans

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Has autocompile for all projects

Specs

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

Top Pro

FTP/SFTP synchronization

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

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

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

Top Pro

Grunt and Gulp Task Runner support

Top Con

Slows down occasionally

The Netbeans IDE is known to take up a large part of memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. Slowdowns can decrease productivity and cause frustration. 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 gets accidentally overwritten. See More

Top Pro

Multiple revision control system integration

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

Top Pro

Best for PHP, HTML5 apps development

Consumes more resources than VSCode etc. But depending on your use-case, it can still be worth it for the benefits you get with this editor. See More

score 6 · Answer 8

IntelliJ IDEA

Top Pro

Supports multiple languages

Top Con

Heavy

PerfectIucharba's Experience

Pros: A full IDE with support for multiple languages, Can directly run web apps via browsers , Free for students , Attractive UI Cons: A bit heavy See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Cross Platform:Yes

Top Pro

Attractive UI

Top Pro

Free for students

Top Pro

Made by developers for developers

It can make one more efficient, but also can get one way too used to shortcuts, autocomplete, and easy debugging. See More

Top Pro

Good BASH script support

Top Pro

Great TypeScript support

Really good support for importing classes, libraries, etc. into a typescript class. Making it easy to do TDD. See More

Top Pro

Supports PHP quite well

Top Pro

Markdown support with preview

Top Pro

A good editor for test-driven development

IntelliJ IDEA is really easy to work with when it comes to test-driven development in Java and JavaScript/TypeScript. See More

Top Pro

Great JavaScript support

Top Pro

Angular CLI support

Top Pro

Great Java Support

Brackets will automatically refresh the browser and load the latest saved version of a file open in the browser. Works with php as well. Editing a css will even highlight the tag that's currently worked on. It only works with Chrome though. See More

score 11 · Answer 9

Brackets

Top Pro

Built-in browser live-updating

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

ConsiderateHeracles's Experience

As a web developer, when it comes to html, css and js (even php and Node.js), I high use Brakets. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

Extension language:JavaScript

License:MIT

Column selection:Yes

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 Pro

Built-in extension manager

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

Live preview

Brackets adds real-time live preview while you're coding See More

Top Con

JavaScript Linting is somehow limited to JSHint

Although it is not a bad thing, some Node.js programmers may find some of the statements flaggged by JSHint undefined or otherwise invalid, annoying. And it may annoy some programmers that they cannot switch it to their own Linter See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

Brackets is entirely free and open source. See More

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

Lightweight

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

Top Con

Nearly there, but not quite yet

Like other Con said, some expected features of a code editor are not present as yet, overall I view the product positively and wanted to give a pro, but the main Con is some basic features are not there, meaning the product overall is not quite there yet. I do like what it does have though See More

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 Pro

Actively developed

Brackets is being actively maintained and developed. See More

Top Pro

Extract CSS from PSD very easy

In Notepad++, the user can utilise regular expressions to quickly modify text across multiple files. See More

score 11 · Answer 10

Notepad++

Top Pro

Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs

Top Con

Windows-only

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

Specs

Platforms:Windows

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 Pro

Portable

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

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

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

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

Split screen

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

User defined language syntax support

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

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 Con

Dated UI

The user interface is dated, cluttered and the design could use a refresh. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use and admin

Very easy to use and personalize 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 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 Pro

Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages

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

After the 21-day free trial, you need to pay $259/year for a license. See More

score 7 · Answer 11

Komodo IDE

Top Con

Expensive

Top Pro

Built-In Debugger

the IDE ships with a built-in debugger that works on a variety of Languages See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

Integrated Debugger:Yes

Komodo IDE offers full support on Node.js but it's not combined with it's JavaScript support but rather made as a standalone. See More

Top Pro

Native Node.js Support

Codelobster IDE has best autocomplete for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and many other popular languages. See More

score 2 · Answer 12

CodeLobster IDE

Top Pro

Best autocomplete for many popular languages

SuaveSuadela's Experience

Very nice IDE See More

score 5 · Answer 13

CodeLite IDE

Top Pro

File Explorer-like workspace view

The workspace view, unlike other IDEs, is a reflection of the actual directory structure on the file system (with user filters applied). See More

Top Con

Bland UI

The UI is fairly boring and has limited customization options. There is a dark theme available, however it only applies to the editor. The surrounding windows and borders remain light. You can see a collection of screenshots here. See More

Top Pro

Modest memory footprint

CodeLite takes up about 50MB when loaded into memory with a workspace opened. See More

Top Pro

Open source and free IDE

CodeLite is licensed under GPL with source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Pro

Rapid development

CodeLite is actively developed with activity almost daily on Github. See More

Top Pro

Excellent Node.js debugger

Top Pro

Intelligent code completion

Codelobster includes great autocomplete for Node JS and many popular JS frameworks. See More

score 9 · Answer 14

Codelobster

Top Pro

Great Node JS autocomplete

Top Pro

Powerful autocomplete features for Nodejs

Top Pro

Great HTML, CSS and JavaScript autocomplete

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

Top Pro

Has plugins to support framework and autocompletion

Top Pro

Advanced support for all popular frameworks

Including Laravel, Bootstrap. jQuery, WordPress, Drupal, Yii and so on. 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

Has direct FTP capability

This IDE is notorious for having slow loading times- the IDE sometimes takes >10s to load up everything. See More

score 16 · Answer 15

Visual Studio Community Edition

Top Con

Slow Loading Times

Top Pro

Simple to Distribute

One click to open the project. One click to run. See More

NeighborlyYonggungChasa's Experience

Visual Studio Community/Pro 2017 works very well. Built-in TypeScript can generate ES5 and ES6 with every little setup. Installing nodejs modules is a breeze. Right click, search, install (though the install doesn't give you a loading indicator - seems broken - but it always works). Distribute to colleges. They open the solution. Click play. And google chrome pops up and it runs! VS2015 is garbage when it comes to NodeJS See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Windows, macOS

Integrated Debugger:Yes

You can choose either C#, F#, C++, Visual Basic, HTML, JavaScript, or from other languages. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Your choice of language

Top Con

Intellisense is not working for VS 2017 Professional Edition

Top Pro

Create a variety of projects

You can create mobile applications, or web applications with ease using Visual Studio community edition. See More

Top Con

Limited compared to paid versions (professional/enterprise)

There is no lab management or team foundation server features, and the testing tools aren't as useful as paid versions. You can see a complete comparison here. See More

Gitpod workspaces are very customizable. You can define a workspace with .gitpod.yml and define your own Dockerfile if you need tools that needs preinstalled automatically. See More

score 4 · Answer 16

Gitpod

Top Pro

Customizable Workspaces

Top Con

Does not create forks automatically for you

If you make a Gitpod workspace based on a GitHub repository you do not own, git push will fail and you need to query the Git client to make the fork for you. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

Only two IDE Projects like this are Open Source-based, and Gitpod is one of them, it features a core that you can self host, and has a Visual Studio Code-esque experience in the cloud. It also has GitHub integration to fancy your needed rich integration needs. See More

Specs

Platforms:Chome OS, Windows, Linux, macOS, Browser-based

Auto Complete:Yes (IntelliSense, LSP, and Textmate)

Bracket Matching:Yes (Textmate and Monaco)

Gitpod is a Web IDE product by TypeFox, which created Theia, a open source IDE framework. They rely on Kubernetes, Docker, Theia, and Let's Encrypt to provide this service - providing a 100% OSS-based SaaS. See More

Top Pro

Open Source to the core

Top Con

Can be slow on 3G Networks

The crux of this is because of the large bundle.js that is needed to be transferred, this is a problem within Theia. See More

Top Pro

Workspaces are created from GitHub URLs

Any GitHub repository can be prepended with https://gitpod.io# to define a Gitpod workspace. Here's an example of it. See More

Top Con

Packages can't be installed through the CLI

Gitpod doesn't support apt installs yet due to the container mounting through an NFS. To alleviate this, you need to define a custom stack for your project if you need it. See More

Top Pro

VNC Support

Gitpod has VNC support out of the box, which allows you to test Desktop apps within the cloud. See More

Top Pro

Pre-authorized Git Client

This is the only GitHub-based Web IDE that pre-authorizes the git client, saving you time to do setup. See More

Top Pro

GitHub Pull Request Issues Comments are viewable on the IDE

No need to jump tabs when making needed changes for your GitHub Pull Request. Gitpod supports viewing the comments and resolving those through the IDE - so you can resolve comments without ever needing to mark it resolved manually on GitHub. See More

Top Pro

Automatic Configuration

If your GitHub repositories does not have a manifest to make a stack, Gitpod will attempt to make a stack based on what it understood about your codebase. However, for popular projects, a central repository on GitHub exists to configure a workspace automatically for them without the manifest file to be present. See More

Top Pro

Language Server Protocol support

LSP is a standard made by Microsoft to create a single common core that can be consumed by a development tool. Theia is based on Visual Studio Code and supports LSP natively. See More

Aptana was specifically created for web application development. It supports a variety of languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby. See More

score 5 · Answer 17

Aptana Studio

Top Pro

Support for web projects

Top Con

Many dependencies

Aptana has a couple of dependencies to keep in mind. It is built with Java and and has some requirements for the JDK version. Aptana requires Git, and Eclipse 3.5+ if you are installing it as an Eclipse plugin. See More

Top Pro

Git integration

Aptana provides integrated support for Git to make collaboration and version control easier. See More

Top Pro

Built-in terminal

Top Pro

Open source

Aptana is available for free under the GPL license with source code available on GitHub. See More

Openshift.io Introduces Spaces, a way to categorize codebases and similar tasks according to a specific project. See More

score 1 · Answer 18

RedHat OpenShift.io

Top Pro

Spaces for categorizing codebases

Top Con

Beta has some stability issues

Currently in Beta state, the platform is not recommended for general usage until stable. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

Although a young platform still incubating, the newly-inagurated OpenShift-based platform seems to be doing a good job as a service See More

Specs

Git:Supported via Eclipse Che and GitHub integration

Type:Cloud Development Platform

Hosting options:Self-hosted(Origin or Minishift)/via AWS or Azure/hosted in RedHat OpenShift Online

Project management:Scenario-driven planning

Using a modified version of Eclipse Che, OpenShift.io can provide online, portable workspaces tailored for a specific codebase. See More

Top Pro

Online Workspaces

Top Pro

GitHub Integration

OpenShift.io integrates deeply with GitHub for projects, and repositories. See More

Top Pro

Agile Boards

OpenShift.io includes Agile boards for Tasks and Labeling. See More

Top Pro

Pipelines for testing apps

By using Jenkins for continuous integration and Openshift Online-hosted environments for testing, the Pipelines provide a seamless way to test apps in varying configurations and specifications. See More

Very easy to use. The only IDE that I'm aware of that actually allows you to deploy directly to the blockchain. See More

score 4 · Answer 19

Eclipse with JSDT

score 2 · Answer 20

cryptofex

Top Pro

VIM & EMACS

Top Con

Currently no GUI

pyrojared's Experience

Top Pro

File comparison & Syntax highlighting

Top Pro

Connect and interact with existing smart contracts.

Top Pro

Compatible with Geth, Parity, Ganache & more.

Top Pro

Deploy to block-chain