Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Atom

Atom

Overview

What is Atom?

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

Read more
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 …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

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

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

7 people also want pricing

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.

Return to navigation

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).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

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

(1-16 of 16)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 02, 2024

Joyful coding

Flavio Mauri | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Atom for coding emails. I was having a weird problem with Dreamweaver (the licensed software my team uses) for which the program would lag, despite having the same machine as other members... so I picked Atom, which I knew was freely available and I had used in a previous job.
Atom works flawlessly, it's super lightweight, and has wonderful themes that are really pleasing to the eye compared to Dreamweaver or Visual Studio Code
  • Lightweight
  • Beautiful themes
  • Plugins
  • Customisable
  • Easily integrates with version control
  • remember window configuration (reopens always the same panels despite closing them)
  • remember code preferences (I use word wrap and i have to switch it on every document)
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization allows us to choose what IDE/text editor we would like to use, and Atom is a popular choice among developers. One of the biggest business problems that Atom addresses is how to efficiently collaborate with other developers while working remotely. Some of its features make it the best possible option for effective and efficient remote collaboration.
  • Remote collaboration
  • Customization
  • Source code integration
  • Ease of use
  • Documentation
Atom is perfectly suited for a developer that wants a highly capable and highly customizable IDE to work in. It has several available packages to integrate with pretty much anything you want and is backed by Github, so that's a huge plus as well. A possible scenario where Atom may not be best suited would be on machines that are a bit slow, as Atom doesn't seem as fast as other text editors or IDE's.
Laura Glover | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is my favourite free, open-source editor. We have use Atom in our development projects. We have used it as a collaboration tool by integrating with Git hub - it was easy to set it up so that the team can work on the same project at the same time from different computers. The code syntax is coloured by language type - which is helpful to see your code. We use it for HTML, JS, CSS, Sass, and PHP editing.
  • HTML, CSS, PHP and other code or text editing
  • Project collaboration with team and developers
  • Free and Open Source
  • Good looking interface
  • Colour coded syntax
  • High start-up time
Atom is a great scripting tool for individuals, freelancers, and small development teams. The interface is slick, and if you require bits of functionality, there are packages which you can add on. No accounts or activation code - just download it, and the user can start coding and launching their web development project in a flash. I sometimes use it for the find and replace function for modifying and editing large batches of plain text.
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.
Samuel Hadid | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom [text editor] is not being used across the whole organization, though many people use it for software development. Its compatibility with many programming/scripting languages is great. It helps a lot with creating programs because it is preloaded with a coloring scheme that highlights libraries, reserved words, and even autofill some functions, which makes it even faster to code. Other users use other text editors, but most of us stick with Atom whenever possible.
  • Compatibility
  • Ease of use
  • C compatibility sometimes is not that great
  • File extensions dictate editing functionality (i.e., no html auto-fill if file not saved as .html)
Atom is great for beginners, for experienced coders, and casual programmers. Is easy to use, easy to export files, easy to identify components, easy to read, and it's pretty good for code reviewing. As we all know, it is always better to review code directly from the compiler/editor used, but if not possible, Atom is an excellent option.
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.
Mark Nowowiejski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is a free text editor that is outstanding for writing made forms of code. I currently use if for composing HTML, CSS, Javascript, and JSON for local testing prior to uploading code to an LMS or CMS.
  • 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!
  • The basic setting it comes with aren't very user-friendly, and if you're new to code editing you might struggle with getting it set-up in an effective way.
  • I sometimes have issues with Atom launching from Command line on a MAC(Hyper).
  • Dreamweaver users my dislike the lack of a 'design view' but there workarounds.
I think Atom is pretty standard to most serious coders as it's lightweight, fast, and free. Some people prefer VS Studio which is a very similar product.
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.
Steven Puringi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Since I am a semi-professional freelancer, Atom is very useful in my exploits in interactive web development. The packages that can be added onto the IDE are very useful, they save time, assist in code structure and development. packages such as HTML Preview help save time between tests as it capture whatever changes I make to the code and displays it in real time, Text Select is another that identifies text of the same name when clicked upon so I can debug my code much more efficiently if need be, Emmit is another that enable short-hand coding which also saves time in terms of tag creations. These a but o few of packages that Atom has to offer to make web development much more efficient and flexible for developers.
  • Real-time code previewing.
  • Word selection highlights.
  • Shorthand coding.
  • In terms of processing, if too many packages installed it tends to slow the PC.
  • Should also branch out to other languages in terms of ease of use and flexibility.
Definitely well suited if you are a freelancing web developer or student because it is free and is open source. Its ease of use and various functionality, depending on packages, is very helpful for beginners and even experts. it is well suited for any task big or small as long as you have the drive and desire to create.
Matthew Deakyne | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Atom is being used by select individuals at the University of Kansas, and not by the organization as a whole. Its used primarily as a simple text editor, but can be configured to be used as a full IDE. It is highly configurable to domain-specific problems, but its core competency is text editing.
  • Highly configurable. Atom has packages that can be managed through the application or via command line. This gives it incredible power for advanced users.
  • Blank Start. Atom opens up by default to a blank note page which can be saved anywhere. It can also be used to open projects, but sometimes notes aren't attached to specific projects. This is useful for quick notes.
  • Run anywhere. Due to it being an electron application, Atom can run on Windows/Mac and Linux. This is incredibly powerful, and a surprising differentiator for a desktop application.
  • Lack of sync. Atom doesn't have sync built in. I know this can be configured to work with Dropbox or Git, but web applications that sync have a clear advantage.
  • Lack of mobile. Not all notes are taken on a computer, and several other note taking apps have an option to take and review notes on a phone.
  • Lack of built-in IDE features. Atom can be configured to be an IDE, but other applications are IDEs by default. It takes a good amount of configuration to bring atom up to that level.
Atom is great for people that need a desktop text editor, and who like to customize their experience. It's incredibly powerful and serves as a good backup to a full-fledged IDE. It probably won't appeal to those that have to do complex development work, or to those that prefer a web-experience due to the automated syncing.
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.
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.
Return to navigation