What users are saying about

Atom vs Vim

Atom
73 Ratings
Vim
19 Ratings

Atom

73 Ratings
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Score 8.4 out of 100

Based on 73 reviews and ratings

Vim

19 Ratings
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Score 9.5 out of 100

Based on 19 reviews and ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

Atom

My recommendation depends on whether my colleague is already using Atom or not. If they are not using Atom, I sincerely find VSCode to be a slightly better editor with a much brighter future in terms of feature development, upcoming plugins, and support. So they should start with VSCode. However, if they are already using Atom, I see no reason to switch for the time being. Atom was a great editor for a long time, and though feature development has stalled, it continues to perform well. It will meet most people's needs when it comes to editing dynamically typed languages.

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Patrick Fong | TrustRadius Reviewer
Patrick Fong
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Vim

I would recommend Vim in any scenario where text files have to be viewed, created, or edited on GNU/Linux computers. Regardless if you need to quickly change a few things in a configuration file, or you need to write up a full document, Vim is great.I wouldn't use Vim to view, edit, or create anything that requires "rich-text". In other words, if you need to format the text (bolding, font colours, word-art, etc), then Vim isn't the tool to use.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Pros

Atom

  • 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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Mark Nowowiejski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mark Nowowiejski
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Vim

  • The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
  • The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
  • The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Cons

Atom

  • Due to some default settings, when I opened the file in Atom and commit it on Git it shows almost every line is changed so my PR is looking too big/ugly.
  • I think omitting the empty spaces should not be the default setting.
  • Performance needs some attention.

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Suleman Ahmad | TrustRadius Reviewer
Suleman Ahmad
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Vim

  • Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
  • By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
  • It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Likelihood to Renew

Atom

Atom 10.0
Based on 1 answer
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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Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Smith, DPA
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Vim

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Usability

Atom

Atom 9.0
Based on 2 answers
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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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Vim

Vim 8.0
Based on 1 answer
I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Support Rating

Atom

Atom 8.3
Based on 26 answers
I never got to reach out to the support team for an urgent/critical matter, but simple functionality or features that required understanding, or submitting a feature request found after using the product for specific use (specific javascript coding features that could be done through other products)

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Samuel Hadid | TrustRadius Reviewer
Samuel Hadid
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Vim

Vim 6.7
Based on 5 answers
There is no commercial support for Vim. Thus, it will not get a mark beyond 5. However, community support is very good. You can easily find solutions for most of the problems in the community.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Implementation Rating

Atom

Atom 10.0
Based on 2 answers
Just download and install

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Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Smith, DPA
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Vim

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Atom

Compared to coding programs, I've found Brackets to be more robust. Some aspects of Atom I've found to be somewhat cumbersome (JSON customization when GUI should be an option), but ultimately Atom is a better experience. Other programs like Dreamweaver tend to be clunky and promise more than they deliver. While basic text edit programs may "do the trick," there is no reason to search further than Atom.

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Walter Aho | TrustRadius Reviewer
Walter Aho
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Vim

Vim's keybindings are a lot more complex than Notepad++. With that, comes a whole bunch of capability that Notepad++ just can't match. Emacs is comparable, in terms of capabilities--because Vim is built into so many unix systems, I chose to learn it instead of Emacs. Knowing both probably isn't a bad idea, but there's enough to learn in either camp to keep you busy

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Jake Tolbert | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jake Tolbert
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Return on Investment

Atom

  • There really was no ROI for us using or not using Atom, positive or negative.
  • The only positive thing I can think of is that I got some face time with the software and realized it just was not for me.

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Matthew James | TrustRadius Reviewer
Matthew James
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Vim

  • It always increases productivity.
  • Sometimes feature discovery is not easy. It could be documented well like how to install a plugin and if it supported well or not.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Pricing Details

Atom

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

Vim

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

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