Atom vs. WebStorm

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Atom
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.N/A
WebStorm
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
WebStorm is an integrated development environment for JavaScript and related technologies. Like other JetBrains IDEs, it aims to make the development experience more enjoyable, automating routine work and helping users handle complex tasks.
$6.90
per month
Pricing
AtomWebStorm
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Individual
$6.90
per month
Bussiness
$15.90
per month per user
Individual
$69
per year
Business
$159
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AtomWebStorm
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AtomWebStorm
Considered Both Products
Atom
Chose Atom
NetBeans was a big application in terms of size, so it usually takes more time when starting development.
Chose Atom
We needed an opensource program to tailor it to our needs. It was also stable enough to handle small to medium projects. It had one of the best built-in GIT integration. It has a clean UI. The simplicity of Atom is why we use it to train new members.
WebStorm
Chose WebStorm
Atom is free to use, unlike WebStorm. However, as it is free it is also open-source. The drawback is that improving and maintaining the product can take time and updates are not as frequent as in WebStorm. Atom's UI is very appealing and customizable. Atom also has GitHub …
Chose WebStorm
Sublime is light weight but it is not powerful as like WebStorm.
Chose WebStorm
The only reason we sometimes use Sublime is that it manages to cover basic development needs while being to be very fast and light. WebStorm is heavier on resources, but you can't compare it with Sublime, because WebStorm is an IDE, and therefore it provides more features and …
Chose WebStorm
I selected IntelliJ WebStorm mostly for legacy issues and I'm used/loyal to it. I guess if I started today, no strings attached I don't know if I'd be using it. It seems the main competitor is Visual Studio Code. Developers like it because it's fast and simple which is an area …
Chose WebStorm
WebStorm is an excellent option but for people who are already into IDEA products. It is costly and resource-intensive and hence might not be favorable to the open source developer groups out there. Though it has many enterprise features like version control integration and …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
AtomWebStorm
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 8.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AtomWebStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
7.2
(31 ratings)
9.3
(27 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(13 ratings)
9.4
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AtomWebStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
Atom is great for simple HTML coding. It's fast, has intuitive shortcuts and several options. I particularly love the "convert spaces to tabs" function that I haven't seen in other editors.
I'm not sure how it would fair in more serious web development today, if there are plugins for live updates of the page you are working on...
But the problem is that it has been discontinued so you know there are no new features or fixes coming through.
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JetBrains
Groups that use a [variety] of development environments (.net, python, web), Jebrain's products and Webstorm, in particular, are a great choice for productivity. If your developers are accustom to another IDE it might be better for all to sync on the same one. I wouldn't take the cost aspect as a consideration. A productive developer is far more important.
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Pros
Open Source
  • Atom is highly customizable and allows for various themes and extensions that can make your code easier to read.
  • Atom has many code hinting features that allow users to write faster and integrate with services likeLINT that can clean up your code once your done to meet your internal teams style choices.
  • It's very fast and manages projects well - Accessing other files within a related folder(s) is very easy and intuitive.
  • It's free!
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JetBrains
  • Includes a built in spell checker to eliminate time wasted searching for small mistakes.
  • Provides a drop down menu of options complete with keyboard shortcuts that allow for streamlined programming.
  • Identifies when variables are named differently, allowing for cohesive work without the scrolling.
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Cons
Open Source
  • There should be a better user tips manual page to learn keyboard shortcuts
  • It would also be beneficial if mathematical and data analytic tools were added
  • it has quite high start-up timing when you open large projects to work on it
  • Sometimes, atom closed suddenly and do not open again
  • It still lacks better options with the previews even though there are already some by users adding plugins
  • It doesn't have self-correct features for lint errors, unlike IntelliJ
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JetBrains
  • The popup file search sometimes frustrates me. It caps the number of results, and sometimes it isn't clear that it simply stopped looking. I also used to have trouble finding string occurrences that I knew were in my project, but I think they've made improvements in this area recently.
  • Being a AAA IDE, WebStorm can be a memory hog. If I don't kill it every few days, it can get really slow. I would love to see performance improvements.
  • Speaking of performance, WebStorm can take a long time to launch. I'd like to see improvements in launch times.
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Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
Well Atom is open source so the re-new is a no brainer. The only way I would stop using Atom is if the developers somehow made it not function well. Or, if the project got forked to a commercial version or something. Or, there could be the case that development stops or that it was not updated on this or that platform
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JetBrains
It's an irreplaceable part of my toolkit and isn't that expensive per year.
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Usability
Open Source
I give Atom a 9 because it is one of the most modern text editors built with JavaScript intentionally to allow the editor to be changed and modified with custom functionality that a team may need. I think I would otherwise give atom an 8 due to support, but it gets a 9/10 because of the extensibility/plugin capability.
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JetBrains
It's easy to teach new users the extreme basics to get them working, then let them figure out little tips, tricks, shortcuts, refactorings, and other features on their own.
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Support Rating
Open Source
Atom has an active forum and a Slack group where you can ask technical questions. Occasionally, the authors will pop in to answer a few questions here and there, but most of the time, its other helpful users who will assist you. Though they aren't the most knowledgeable, they are at least timely.
As for plugin support, that differs with each plugin, but as I mentioned before, many plugins are no longer maintained.
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JetBrains
I gave this rating because I have never needed their customer support, which is the highest level of support I suppose. When a product works just fine out of the box and everything you may need is well documented, it's a paradise for the customer. But I've seen some questions asked on their portal, and I've seen thorough answers given to the questions and the willingness to support the customer with follow-ups and everything else.
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Implementation Rating
Open Source
Just download and install
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JetBrains
Highly recommend the JetBrains Toolbox, it remembers your recent projects and launches from the task bar.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
Our company likes to keep things open, and we don't want to prevent developers from customizing their environment the way they want. Atom seemed to be a lot more open than our existing tools and has good community support on pretty much any programming language. This can create some confusion since adding too many extensions or customizing can make the tool slower than it is supposed to be.
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JetBrains
I think WebStorm is way ahead of open-source editors. Please don't get me wrong, I love open-source. But the other free editors have a lot of configuration which blocks my whole coding experience. Take "Atom" for example. I used it for about 3 months, but in that time I had to update the plugins hundreds of time, and for every little thing (e.g. linter) I had to download a community plugin, and with each plugin atom would get a little slow. Take "Eclipse" for another example, which is very suited for Java, but not so suited for JavaScript. Sublime was good, but WebStorm comes with many exciting features that I did not find in sublime/notepad.
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • The tool we use when we need quick fixes. Allows fast, reliable scripting to fix urgent problems in our applications.
  • When applications grow from 5-10 files to 100's, they need to be migrated to a heavier-duty IDE. This can be cumbersome and quite annoying, but is necessary to maintain code integrity on such a large scale (since it cannot be done with the limited default toolset of Atom).
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JetBrains
  • Saves lot of time when we are finding the text or files.
  • Easy to work with for support projects.
  • Nice code completion feature.
  • It's all in one solution for both front end, back end and database solution to work with.
  • Initial learning curve is required to use the workbench.
  • Documentation can be improved better probably adding videos, would be helpful for visual person.
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