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Atom

Atom

Overview

What is Atom?

Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Atom is a versatile and widely-used text and code editor that offers numerous features and benefits to its users. It is favored by …
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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is Atom?

Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Alternatives Pricing

What is Sublime Text?

Sublime Text is a highly customizable text editing solution featuring advanced API, Goto functions, and other features, from Sublime HQ in Sydney.

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Product Details

Atom Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.6.

The most common users of Atom are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(89)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Atom is a versatile and widely-used text and code editor that offers numerous features and benefits to its users. It is favored by developers across various organizations and industries for a range of use cases. Users appreciate Atom's clean and simple user interface, making it easy to navigate and use without any issues. With support for multiple programming languages, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, C++, and more, Atom is suitable for diverse coding projects.

One key use case of Atom is as a powerful tool for web development. It enables developers to efficiently write code for websites using languages like PHP, CSS, JS, and HTML. Its features, such as syntax highlighting and autocompletion, make coding in these languages more efficient. Additionally, Atom's integration with Git provides version control capabilities, allowing teams to collaborate on website development projects seamlessly.

Another notable use case of Atom is its popularity among data scientists and analytics professionals. With support for programming languages like Python, R, and Unix, Atom serves as an effective code editor for editing multiple codes in analytics workflows. Its customizable nature allows users to tailor the editor to their specific needs, making it a valuable tool for data analytics and machine learning projects.

Furthermore, Atom is recommended by developers as an alternative to Visual Studio Code due to its relatively basic interface and extensive selection of plugins contributed by the community. This attributes to its widespread usage within organizations as a preferred IDE text editor.

Overall, Atom's versatility, ease of use, extensive plugin ecosystem, and compatibility with various programming languages make it a go-to choice for developers seeking a customizable and efficient coding environment.

Highly Customizable: Many users have praised Atom for its high level of customization. They appreciate the ability to tailor their coding environment to their preferences, with various themes and extensions available. This feature allows them to make their code easier to read and navigate, enhancing their overall coding experience.

Code Hinting Features: Several reviewers have been impressed with Atom's code hinting capabilities. This feature helps them write code faster and integrates well with services like LINT, allowing them to clean up their code according to their team's style choices. Users find this functionality particularly useful in speeding up their coding process.

Free Software: The fact that Atom is free has been seen as a major advantage by many users. They appreciate not having to invest in expensive software while still being able to access a robust coding environment. This affordability makes it accessible to a wide range of developers.

Limited API Requests: Some users have experienced the issue of receiving an error message stating "Error: Request failed with status code 429." Several reviewers have expressed frustration with this limitation, as it hinders their ability to make API requests effectively.

Performance Issues: A number of users have reported performance issues while using Atom. They have noticed sluggishness and lag in the software, particularly when dealing with larger files or projects. This has led to delays and inefficiencies in their workflow.

Lack of Intuitive UI/UX: Several reviewers have mentioned that they find the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of Atom to be less intuitive compared to other text editors. Users have struggled with finding certain features, customizing their workspace, and navigating through the application smoothly.

Users recommend using the self-hosted version of Atom instead of the cloud version and taking advantage of Atom's package manager. They suggest that Atom is suitable for both beginners and professionals, as well as for web development, Ruby on Rails development, and front-end development. Atom is also considered a lightweight and visually appealing text editor. Users often suggest it as an alternative to Sublime Text and for languages without a dedicated IDE. They encourage exploring the wide range of packages available in the Atom community and customizing Atom to personal preferences. Atom is frequently recommended for learning to code and simple web development projects. However, users caution that it may not be suitable for large projects and advise learning the keyboard shortcuts for improved efficiency. Additionally, they recommend using Atom on a PC with higher RAM capacity and exploring Atom's plugins for added functionality.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(26-31 of 31)
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February 04, 2019

Why do I use Atom?

Reges Mendes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use it for myself since the department policy allows us to choose our preferred editor. I use it to write code usually for websites, i.e. PHP, CSS, JS, and HTML files.
  • It have a nice encoding handling approach. Some editors don't work properly with different encoding files in the same project and Atom deals with that in a almost transparent way.
  • The approach of folders like projects is also more productive than that complex way like another old standard editors.
  • The resource of collapsing blocks of code is very useful in a developers' daily.
  • The "search in directory" option could have a hotkey (shortcut).
  • The editor could keep search results on tabs, allowing to browse between several searches.
  • The editor could support "CTRL+click" as "go to declaration" feature. It's a kind of standard that I still miss, I often need to go to the declaration of a variable or method and find it by search, specially when you just can have one search at once, is really a pain.
It's more appropriated when the developer does not have to work with many projects at once and the project is not too big.
Violeta Calvo Ilundain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is my main text editor for developing code. It is built by the GitHub team and has a native integration of Git, which is very helpful. Available for OSX, Windows and Linux, it is my favorite text editor for both work and personal projects.
  • Native Git integration.
  • Optional plugins and customization.
  • Cross-platform
  • Has all the things expected to develop code.
  • Maybe they can improve the themes. I haven't found a theme that I really love...
I highly recommend Atom for web development.
Abraham García | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using this software throughout the systems department of our organization. It is totally free software so it means a significant saving of money when it comes to paying software licenses. Atom is very versatile and adapts to everything since it has a number of downloadable packages that increase the functions that come by default.
  • Supports a large number of programming languages.
  • It has a large number of packages that increase functionality.
  • Has integration with Git. Projects are automatically synchronized with the Git repository.
  • It is very customizable. You can change all styles of editor jobs.
  • It's heavy. The initial load of the software can take a long time.
  • When you open a file or navigate between the different tabs, the reaction time may be a bit longer than expected.
  • If you have a computer with few resources then I would not recommend it.
Atom is one of the best existing code editors on the market. It is very appropriate for any freelance developer or company since it is totally free. I would not recommend it for computers with low RAM, in this case, Atom can be a bit stressful. But in most cases, Atom has an unmatched performance.
December 18, 2018

Beautiful code editor

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is being used by some software engineers and designers across the tech organization. It's a code editor, so it solves the business problem of needing to write code.
  • Really nice UI
  • Allows plugins
  • Open source
  • Doesn't handle huge commits/merges very well
  • Rectangle select (though there is a plugin)
  • Slightly different shortcuts to Sublime
It is well suited to writing code, especially for those that care about having a beautiful IDE. I'm sure there are more complex backend applications for which is it not appropriate.
Ian Nate | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I needed a free or freemium code editor. I had previously used Coda for Mac, and really liked it, but needed something quickly and really wanted something to use across both Mac and Windows. Plus, they had some plugins that I really liked, the code formatting was solid, and keyboard shortcuts were fantastic. I've used Atom primarily for PHP, Javascript, HTML and CSS for a few years now. Since we haven't had a standard editor anywhere I've worked, I've always just pieced together what I'm using. I like it much better than Notepad ++, VIM, and got pretty frustrated with Komodo on Mac. Atom was a great solution and I can use it on both platforms.
  • Code formatting for different languages. Does a solid job, I know this is basic for a code editor, but had to be mentioned. Also can reduce indented code.
  • Extensible via packages. I really like the Minimap plugin, the File Icons plugin, Beautify, etc.
  • Along with being extensible, it's also "hackable" -- you can write your own plugins or extensions. I like how customizable it is out of the box -- helps to fit your workflow, rather than forcing your process into whatever code editor you're using.
  • Performance can be a little slow when editing a bunch of files, executing code or switching between tabs.
  • I wish they had more guidance on HOW to customize Atom out of the box -- it's kind of a pain to go through all the packages and settings and figure out what works best for you.
  • Still relatively new, so can be buggy here and there, although releases seem to be very consistent.
I'd say for frontend development and web development, it shines. PHP, HTML, CSS, and Javascript are all pretty seamless. Not sure how it would hold up with backend heavy development -- Python, Ruby, C++, Java, etc... Seems like occasionally slow performance might keep it from really shining in that environment. For me, it's a no-brainer for web development though, and that's my primary usage. A lot of backend users still seem to use Sublime.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is my IDE of choice for any web development work I assist with. It is not used department-wide-- solely within the IT section of our company. Atom provides a clean, highly configurable, highly organized, and highly functional environment for coding in all languages--though my experience with it consists only of Javascript, HTML, and CSS.
  • Automatic syntax coloring and formatting. Code is so, so much easier to read and write when related keywords are automatically color-coordinated and indentation happens automatically.
  • Community-driven plugins. Because Atom is open-source, anyone can write a plugin to add functionality and features to the software--this means, as a user, you have hundreds of valuable tools at your fingertips, for free.
  • Aesthetics. As long as you're staring at your computer for 8+ hours per day, you may as well be looking at something aesthetically pleasing, right? Not only is Atom's interface clean and well-polished, you can download custom themes, shift between light/dark mode, and so much more. Having control over the look and feel of your IDE makes long hours of coding so much more enjoyable.
  • The tabs that automatically open upon launching the app can be a little cluttered and annoying--they can almost certainly be toggled off in Settings, but their default behavior is slightly irksome.
Atom is well-suited for anyone who needs a robust text editor for writing computer code. It's excellent for beginners (like me) in that it provides auto-completion, helps with formatting, and is generally user-friendly. It's also stellar for code experts in that it provides a built-in GitHub interface, Teletype for collaboration in real time, and much more. If you're writing more than a few lines of code for any reason, Atom is absolutely a good choice.
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