When comparing Haroopad vs Atom, the Slant community recommends Haroopad for most people. In the question“What are the best open source Markdown editors for UNIX-like systems?” Haroopad is ranked 3rd while Atom is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Haroopad is:
Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very customizable
Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS.
Pro Multiplatform support
Runs on Mac, Windows and Linux with 32-bit and 64-bit binary packages available.
Pro Completely free
Haroopad is a free and open source Markdown Editor.
Pro Various publishing and export options
Haroopad can publish to Wordpress, Evernote, Tumblr and MediaWiki and export to EPub, ReStructured Text, RTF and PDF.
Pro Mathematical expressions support
Haroopad supports mathematical expressions through LaTeX and MathJax.
Pro Supports MathJax
Mathematical equations can be exported to the browser by using MathJax, a JavaScript display engine with a lot of great features such as typography support and modular output.
Pro Allows embedding content from a wide variety of sources
Content from YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Slideshare, Flickr, Instagram, Soundcloud, Wikipedia and Pastebin can be embedded in the document.
Pro The Markdown flavor can be extended
Haroopad supports GitHub Markdown flavor out of the box. But the functionality can be extended to support additional Markdown features.
Pro Vi key bindings
For people used ti vi/vim, Haroopad can be set up to be used with vi keybindings.
Pro Dual License
GPL3 license is applied to the current version and will be applied in the future to meet the internal dual licensing scheme.
Commercial use follows Apache license v2 (APLv2) for keeping the GPL license and non-commercial use under consideration.
Pro Extensive list of packages
Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages.
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.
Pro Multiplatform
Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
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.
Pro Free and open source
Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript.
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.
Pro Embedded Git control
Atom will highlight folders, files, and lines that have any uncommitted edits made. It also integrates really well with GitHub.
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.
Pro Command Palette support
The Command Palette permits fuzzy searching all available functions, settings, snippets, etc.
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.
Pro Themes
You can theme and customize Atom to your liking.
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.
Pro HiDPI support
Atom has built-in HiDPI support with zero scaling issues.
Pro Modern feel and very customizable and extendable
Pro Vim plugin turns Atom into a modernized vim
Pro Best support for Arduino with Platformio
Arduino is the most important platform for developing embedded systems.
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.
Cons
Con English translation is iffy
The software was initially developed in Korean for Korean users and later translated and ported to English. The translation to English has not been perfect and there may be some weird expressions and grammatical errors along the way.
Con Documentation is in Korean
The official documentation is in Korean, so it may be a bit hard for non-Korean speakers to find their way around Haroopad.
Con Windows installer does not support easy admin installation
It can't request the necessary privileges to install to C:\Program Files.
Con Undo sometimes loses control about the selection
Select some text, select a formatting in the Markdown Syntax Helper view, undo.
Con Code pane is dark in default theme
Can be hard to read and a bit hard to find where to change it.
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.
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.
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.
Con Slows down exponentially with plugins
Extending it needs sacrificing responsiveness.
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.
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.
Con Indent errors
Sometimes, especially when given a file that has different indentation that the current setting, the programm seems to get confused.
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.
Con No text UI
Con Bloated - too many packages, too little productivity
Unable to use package to even convert a C file to PDF.
Con Slow because of Electron
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.
Con Crash and data loss
Repeated data loss when the app crashes.
A bugreport about that was closed automatically after some time, nobody cares.
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.