When comparing Notepad++ vs Gitpod, the Slant community recommends Notepad++ for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs for Node.js?” Notepad++ is ranked 10th while Gitpod is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Notepad++ is:
Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages
Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.
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.
Pro Extendable via plugins
A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained.
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.
Pro Free under GPL
Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely.
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.
Pro Persistent documents, even after exiting the application
If you close Notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved.
Pro User defined language syntax support
You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) .
Pro Easy to use and admin
Very easy to use and personalize.
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.
Pro Split screen
The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window.
Pro Supports Markdown
If you have the Plugin Manager installed you can search for MarkdownViewer++ and install it via that plugin.
Pro Customizable Workspaces
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.
Pro Open Source to the core
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.
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.
Pro VNC Support
Gitpod has VNC support out of the box, which allows you to test Desktop apps within the cloud.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cons
Con Windows-only
While it can run in Wine, it is native only to Windows. Linux users will have to use Notepadqq instead.
Con Settings confusingly scattered
Examples: try to change the tab size or used font.
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.
Con Outdated UI
Only the text area can be themed, and it doesn't have as many features as browser-based text areas.
Con Limited new syntax support for new languages
It may be hard to find good plugins for relatively new languages.
Con Session backups not enabled by default
Unsaved tabs will be lost when Npp crashes, unless you first enable the session backup option.
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.
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.
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.
Con Packages can't be installed through the CLI
Gitpod doesn't support apt install
s 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.