Three open-source code editors for developers

Code editors are for developers like colours for the people, everyone prefers some colours over the rest, everyone has his own preferences. There are different code editors, each one with very different functionalities. In this article, I am going to present three opens-source code editors which are in the top of best options nowadays, and they are every bit as good as the proprietary code editors.

All the code editors present multiple extensions or plugins that aim to facilitate the developer’s work, that can be installed easily only by a few mouse clicks, and different aids/support tools for developing with almost no distinction between them.

The choice of using one editor or another will depend on a few details and how comfortable we feel working on the chosen one. However, to know which one fits us best, we must try the three options.

Atom.io(https://atom.io)

Created and maintained by GitHub and developed in nodejs and electron, it is multi-platform and supports several programming languages.

Main characteristics:

• Versions for Windows, Mac and Linux.

• Package manager integrated to search for new functionalities and make our life easier.

• Intelligent self-completion.

• File browser.

• Multi-panel layout to divide the interface.

• Powerful search tool and functionalities to replace multiple texts.

• Connectivity with Github.

• Several themes for customisation.

As you may see, if you try Atom, it is very customizable and you can configure many options. It can be easily adapted to any development.

You will find the Github Repository for the source code in the following link (https://github.com/atom/atom).

Brackets.io(http://brackets.io)

Created and maintained by Adobe. It has been developed in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Main characteristics:

• Versions for Windows, Mac and Linux.

• Mainly created to develop Front-End.

• Preview of the results for developed source code.

• Support for extensions.

• Support for themes.

Here you have the links to the list of extensions (https://registry.brackets.io) and the source code (https://github.com/adobe/brackets)

Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com)

And last but not least, Visual Studio Code, created and maintained by Microsoft, developed in TypeScript, JavaScript and CSS.

Main Characteristics:

• Versions for Windows, Mac and Linux.

• Multiple Options for customisation using extensions.

• Support for multiple programming languages.

• Management of themes for customisation.

• Connectivity with GitHub and Azure.

Here, you can find the available extensions (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/VSCode) and the source code of the editor (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode).

You can already find a very interesting article about plugins for JS in Visual Studio Code published here in the blog (https://openexpoeurope.com/es/top-plugins-para-js-en-el-visual-studio-code/)

I have described briefly these three great open-source code editors to motivate you to try them and to help you to choose one, so you can use it every day.

As you may see, all the editors are very similar, but still different. At the end, the small details are those that will make you go for one or another editor.

Personally, I like Visual Studio Code the most and it is the one I most often use. Anyway, I have the three previously presented editors installed and I use each of them from time to time because I like them. Sometimes, the problem of a great and diverse offer is that I don’t know which one I should use. 🙂

More about Alex Arenols: 

Passionate about technology, programming and free software. Using Windows since the beginning…until the day I tried Linux, he liked it so much that he still uses it. Editor in the blogs cambiatelinux.com and netveloper.com, where he collaborates writing articles, and providing help and tricks about Linux and Programming.

Translation by Santiago Moreira