Atom Alternatives

    Atom is described as 'Extensible, cross-platform text editor with a rich ecosystem of plugins and themes' and is one of the leading apps in the Development category. There are more than 100 alternatives to Atom for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, the Web and BSD. The best alternative is Visual Studio Code, which is free. Other great apps like Atom are Notepad++ (Free, Open Source), Sublime Text (Paid), Vim (Free, Open Source) and Geany (Free, Open Source).

    The list of alternatives was last updated Feb 16, 2021
    Atom info, screenshots & reviewsAlternatives to Atom
    • 177 alternatives

    • Visual Studio Code

      VS Code is more than just a code editor, it provides the tools and extensions to compile, debug, compare, refactor, and even manage code repositories all within a... View 166 alternatives to Visual Studio Code
      Almost everyone thinks Visual Studio Code is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Proprietary
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Chrome OS
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      Visual Studio Code vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
       all • positive • negative      relevance • date
      Much faster, highly active development phase, more and more add-ons are added to the marketplace, open source, and cross-platform.
      Top positive comment  over 3 years ago

      dantex47 Much much faster, much better IntelliSense/context-aware suggestions. Even supports debugging.
      Top positive comment  over 3 years ago

      Telementry, key bindings, resources usage.
      Top negative comment  over 4 years ago

      Ugotsta VS Code has arguably better defaults than Atom especially with the pre-configured minimap. Atom's themes use HTML/CSS so visuals are fully configurable but that also makes it a bit slower with drawing operations whereas VS Code draws everything fast, very noticeable with the minimap which reacts practically instantly to changes. VS Code also loads faster and just feels faster in general. Otherwise, both editors offer a massive list of great features and droves of extensions.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      someonelast Makes everything easier, faster.
      Positive comment • about 3 years ago

      hum4n01d Faster, still customizable, more basic things such as terminal built in
      Positive comment • almost 4 years ago

      Seems faster than Atom, less resource-hungry. Also using it as the default text editor on macOS.
      Positive comment • almost 4 years ago

      Show more comments ▾
      7 of 8 comments

    • Notepad++

      Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. View 194 alternatives to Notepad++
      Most users think Notepad++ is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Windows
      • PortableApps.com
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      Notepad++ vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      vazirified All needed features included, light weight and to the point. Good support for RtL scripts and customization. The only possible problem found is that the official builds are compiled for MS-Windows only, but it is open source, so that's no big deal breaker!
      Top positive comment  almost 4 years ago

      crlamke Notepad++ has built-in support for many languages and a great plugin system for more.
      Top positive comment  almost 4 years ago

      notepad++ has very les plugins and isn't very customizable
      Top negative comment  over 3 years ago

      xmwx38 Usage of Notepad++ should be really straightforward for those with prior IDE knowledge & experience.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      Light on resources, easy to use. Good for beginners.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      MorganGeek Notepad++ is not cross platform and not as performant as Atom
      Negative comment • almost 4 years ago

    • Sublime Text

      Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. View 170 alternatives to Sublime Text
      Almost everyone thinks Sublime Text is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
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      Sublime Text vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      Ivann It is very similar and easy to understand and use, this program is probably one of the best alternatives to Atom if you are using it for simple text editing and you are not very interested in modifying the program itself, even though both programs are really great, I prefer to use Atom when I'm on linux and Sublime Text when I'm on Windows.
      Top positive comment  almost 3 years ago

      Sublime text is powerful such as adding "anaconda" package makes it a full functional IDE, also it supports lots of important languages like java, javascript, C#, ruby, perl to name a few. The only draw back about it is it's not free but work to buy.
      Top positive comment  over 3 years ago

      xmwx38 You wouldn't believe me if I told you the amount of plug-ins available for easy addition.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      Because Sublime it's almost the same but paid. It only have minor differences on the packages you can install (some are better in Sublime, some are better in Atom).
      Positive comment • over 3 years ago

      SublimeText is by far my most favorite editor in my 32 years of computing as it has multitude of features found no where else and is extendable with packages. Vertical Selection and Multi-caret editing is two of my most used features.
      Positive comment • about 4 years ago

    • Vim

      Vim ("Vi IMproved") is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. It also has a GUI version called GVim. View 173 alternatives to Vim
      Almost everyone thinks Vim is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • BSD
      • Haiku
      • AmigaOS
      • OpenSolaris
      • MorphOS
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      Vim vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      Vim offers unlimited customization and consumes very less memory, it supports execution of commands from vim itself and with the right plugins works almost like an ide
      Positive comment • almost 4 years ago

      While Vim is powerful, it’s not an easy replacement for a GUI-based text editor.
      Negative comment • almost 3 years ago

      Vim is a command-line tool, which differs a lot from a GUI app like Atom, Notepad++ or Sublime Text.
      Negative comment • about 4 years ago

    • Geany

      Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. View 120 alternatives to Geany
      Almost everyone thinks Geany is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • BSD
      • PortableApps.com
      • Xfce
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      Geany vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      Geany is easy, extremely fast, and reliable. Has a good console. Has good interaction with the shell. Is very customizable. Can be extended with lua. Has good selection of plugins. Snippets. Block editing. Code folding. Syntax highlighting. Tab completion. Everything works. File browser. Object browser. Configurable compilation and execution. Project managment. etc. Everuthing without bloating.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

    • gedit

      Official text editor of the GNOME desktop environment. Has syntax highlighting and is suitable for programming, with support for several languages. It is extensible with plugins. View 153 alternatives to gedit
      Most users think gedit is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Chrome OS
      • BSD
      • GNOME
      • OpenSolaris
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    • VSCodium

      Binary releases of Visual Studio Code without Microsoft branding, telemetry and licensing. View 161 alternatives to VSCodium
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Electron / Atom Shell
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    • GNU nano

      GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. View 117 alternatives to GNU nano
      Most users think GNU nano is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • BSD
      • Haiku
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      GNU nano vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      sondrak Easiest CLI-based text editor for newbies
      Positive comment • about 3 years ago

      nano is a great editor when you are in CLI, however, of course, it does not use GUI or has GUI.
      Positive comment • almost 4 years ago

    • Kate

      The Kate project develops two main products: KatePart, the advanced editor component which is used in numerous KDE applications requiring a text editing component, and Kate, a MDI... View 115 alternatives to Kate
      Almost everyone thinks Kate is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • BSD
      • KDE
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    • GNU Emacs

      GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. View 141 alternatives to GNU Emacs
      Almost everyone thinks GNU Emacs is a great alternative to Atom.
      • Free • Open Source
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • BSD
      • Homebrew
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      GNU Emacs vs Atom
      pros, cons and recent comments
      cycroenerugi Its more than just a text editor, its an list interpreter and an shell. Good for computer setups without mouse
      Positive comment • almost 4 years ago

    Showing 10 of 177 alternatives