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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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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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What is Atom?

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

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  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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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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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

(1-13 of 13)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is a powerful editor that is being used by development teams for coding in any given programming language. We were looking to unify the developer's experience and work on a single platform, as opposed to everyone having their own editor. Although it is not made mandatory, we had a pretty good and quick adoption of the product throughout the years. Atom is very customizable, which helps tremendously.
  • Lightweight, intuitive interface that is almost self-explanatory
  • Highly customizable (themes, plugins, language support)
  • Great community support with open-source extensions
  • Some stability issues such as intermittent crashes
  • Developers with advanced needs will not find equivalents to VS Studio
  • Managing plugins at the corporate level can be cumbersome
Atom is great for developers looking for a completely hackable experience. There is a ton of plugins available to you, and you can really build an editor that matches your own personal taste. The performance is also pretty neat and does not impact your CPU as much as the competition.
David McCann | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am the only user of Atom at my organization, but it was the editor of choice at my previous job. It is used for quick-and-dirty text manipulation, as well as for C# and Javascript coding.
  • Atom has an amazing plugin library that is easy to use and integrates seamlessly.
  • Specifically, Atom's multi-cursor plug-in functionality provides a powerful method for manipulating text in bulk.
  • Atom provides good syntax highlighting and other interactive support for a number of programming languages through its available plug-ins.
  • Some of Atom's default UX could be improved. Depending on your previous workspace, it can open with two panes and a welcome tab in each, requiring you to close lots of cruft on startup.
  • Atom's documentation and plugin marketplace could be a little more discoverable.
Atom is great as a general-purpose text editor, and is especially powerful for bulk text editing, and scripting languages where a more heavy-weight IDE isn't as appropriate (e.g. Javascript, Coffeescript, Ruby, Python, etc.)
Jonah Dempcy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Atom for C++ development because I enjoy its user interface and I like how extensible it is. I first discovered Atom when a mentor of mine introduced me to the Beta. I was immediately drawn to the fact that it has support for plugins written in Node.js, which I am a big fan of. I also like its Git integration. The fact that the whole app is written in what are essentially web development technologies also appeals to me, given my history in web development. Since I do a lot of Android development, I use Android Studio. However, for the JNI layer and native code (written in C++, in my case) I prefer using Atom over Android Studio.
  • Git integration
  • Plugin ecosystem
  • C++ development
  • Sometimes things do not work as expected. Atom has improved a lot over the last couple of years, but it still could use some polish.
  • Atom needs plugins for quality-of-life improvements. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it allows you to customize Atom to suit your needs.
  • It would be nice if Atom had some recommended starter packages that come with popular plugins for highlighting, soft-wrapping and so on.
  • There are some plugins that could be turned into core Atom features, like Linter and Beautify.
Atom is excellent for writing code in any of its supported languages, although for Java, C#, or Objective C, it would probably not be my first choice. The reason is that there are other more robust IDEs that are made especially for those languages (e.g. Eclipse, Visual Studio, and Xcode). I use Atom for writing C++ but I also love it for web development. It's great when you want to customize your development environment for your particular workflow and have time to spare digging into the nitty-gritty of configuration, as well as trying out a lot of different plugins and removing the ones that don't work well. In general, it's great when you have the time to set it up right, and not as good when you want to get moving quickly without a lot of configuration.
Patrick Fong | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used to use Atom as our code editor of choice for our dynamically typed language. Atom comes with fantastic syntax highlighting and other plugins out of the box that make writing code a breeze. Whenever we have to write HTML, CSS, Javascript, or Python, we used to use Atom. Some engineers also use Atom with some extra plugins for quick text manipulation, such as when they need to format strips, strip out lots of whitespaces, or prefix an unnumbered list with numbers. We have since switched over to VSCode (more on that later), but I would say that Atom is still a good choice if you are already using it.
  • Cross platform support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  • Helpful community of people on the forums to ask for help.
  • Development on the Atom source code has greatly stalled since Microsoft purchased GitHub.
  • Many plugin developers moved their plugins onto VSCode and stopped maintaining their Atom version.
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.
Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Atom to edit code on the Mac and Windows platform. As a technologist, I do recommend this editor to both faculty and students because it is free and open-source. It is a good text editor and code editor with lots of functionality. It is modern and seems rather stable. I think it will be around for quite a while.
  • Edit code in multiple windows.
  • Atom is available on many computing platforms.
  • Atom seems to be a bit aggressive with the "help" and "tip" system. You have to turn that stuff off or it is annoying.
  • On occasion, sometimes a package does not work, they need to pull those.
Atom is quick to install and get going across a variety of platforms. The open-source nature says that this editor will always be around. I would recommend this editor to someone new to editing code. There is a good help and tip system. I don't think that this editor would appeal to minimalists because it is way maximum on what you can do. Lots of features and lots of configuration that is possible.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I've been using Atom to code custom websites for my organization, and previously for a small web design company. While I am the sole user in my organization, I use Atom to code in PHP (for custom WordPress sites), HTML, some javascript, and even SASS for CSS. The ability to manage an entire project in one environment is key to a good workflow.
  • Color Coding for ease of organization.
  • Excellent customization - visually and functionally.
  • Integrated SASS compilers (or similar) would be a great asset.
  • The ability to create "draft" or backups of files would be a nice feature.
Atom does a great job of allowing you to work in multiple coding languages (in my case, HTML, PHP, Javascript, and CSS/SASS) with no confusion. The color-coding, organization, and ability to customize your workspace is extremely helpful as well. The addition of packages, for FTP upload, for example, makes for a quick and easy workflow.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Atom as our coding platform for everything on our website. It is integrated with git so we have version control. It is a very fast and free alternative to using Adobe Dreamweaver which is the subscription we have.
  • Integration with GIT.
  • Code coloring.
  • Code hints.
  • A better live HTML code rendering system.
HTML, CSS, and Javascript are flawless. Code hints provide an easy way to code.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an open-source editor, several people within my organization are currently using the power of Atom as their code editor of choice. Because Atom is relatively basic in interface with the added benefit of countless plugins contributed by the larger community, Atom is generally the most recommended editor in my organization outside of Visual Studio Code.
  • Usability: Atom is very user-friendly. Its interface is clean and the entire application is incredibly simple to navigate even for users new to editors
  • Cross-Platform Experience: No matter your system, Atom works the same which makes providing demos and examples pretty seamless
  • Community Driven Plugin Development: Because the community is able to contribute plugins, Atom is extremely useful regardless of what you are trying to do. Working on the Go? There's a plugin for that. Working with infrastructure as code using Terraform? Plugin for that. Editing chef code? There's also a plugin for that.
  • Memory Hog: Using Atom, Slack, and Chrome on a laptop that isn't completely specked out is a recipe for disaster. Try opening Spotify, I dare you.
As a general rule, I always recommend Atom to someone new to editors or someone looking for a simple editor that is powerful but easy to get used to. For users that are new to any kind of code maintenance, Atom is a real treat. It doesn't have the clutter of Visual Studio Code in the user interface but it is just as powerful and extensible from a plugin perspective.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My team uses it to develop and maintain our websites using HTML, JavaScript and Django, a python based framework. It is also used as a general purpose text editor. It's light weight too. It also gave us functions comparable to that of a IDE without all the memory usage. It's open source and easily customizable. We also found it to have one of the best GIT integrations among its competitors.
  • Opensource : While Sublime is a good editor which is comparable to Atom, it's not opensource. Atom is opensource. Which makes it easier to tailor it to suit your needs.
  • Autocomplete: Atom automatically variable names, functions and constructs, it also closes the brackets as soon as you open one. Which helps me avoid syntax errors.
  • Simplicity : It maintains simplicity without sacrificing important features.
  • GIT Integration : Considering that it's built by GitHub, it's no surprise that Atom has a very good GIT integration.
  • Startup is a bit slow. Memory management can be improved.
  • Support for syntax highlighting for some languages are missing.
  • Some plugins randomly crash and Atom stops responding. Uninstalling the plugin that crashed usually solves this.
  • Search engine does not work as you would expect it to work.
It is well suited for new programmers who are looking for a free editor to start coding. It also supports most major languages out there. You can use the same software to develop a program in Java, python and many other languages. It is also cross-platform. It is a bare-bones code editor that you can build up to your liking using the available plugins to extend the functionalities.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is being used by my team as one of the primary text editors for data analytics and machine learning workflows when it comes to making modifications to code and writing analytic SQL queries. The primary business problem it addresses is a cross-platform analytics tool that all our team members can use to make changes to code. It also allows for plugin extensibility, and thereby reduces the amount of friction when sharing text and code that needs highlighting.
  • Extensibility via plugins.
  • Code highlighting in various languages.
  • Cross-platform support.
  • User-support.
  • Bug and crash handling.
  • Lagging when connected to a server.
Atom is well-suited when you need a cross-platform text editor that is basic and highlights code well. This is not an integrated development environment, and therefore you should focus on finding one of those programs instead if your goal is to have a whole testing, run, and automation suite. This works well for rudimentary editing supported by external tools that do running or testing.
Dylan Cauwels | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is used as a small scripting tool by mainly myself and a few others. It's a perfect tool for drumming up a rapid solution to any problem-- in our case, aws and infrastructure problems. It has enough tools and plug-ins to help you debug a script, but still remains incredibly lightweight and quick to deploy.
  • Lightweight solution. Unmatched in the ability to drum up a script, test it, and deploy it until a more permanent solution is available.
  • Adaptable to almost any situation. Need to do a SQL script? There's a plugin that will allow you to connect to your database or a sample one and run your code. General scripts can be run straight from the program instead of the command line with the "script" plugin. There are even scripts that will "beautify" ugly code for you to fix "that guy's" code.
  • Should have account-based customization so that plugins sync across machines. Currently, you have to individually install each plugin/environment on every machine that you encounter, which can be incredibly time consuming and frustrating after the first time.
Well suited for small, lightweight solutions to problems that need to be made quickly and effectively. My implementation was used mainly for infrastructure scripting and automation processes through python3 and Ansible. Not very good for large application programming, as it won't remember keywords/class names/method names very well and will often suggest wrong fields that would result in errors. Also not very good at catching errors, as it's meant to be lightweight and therefore doesn't have those indexing capabilities.
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.
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.
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