CodeMirror vs Notepad++

Overview

Notepad++

Stacks20.4K

Followers16.8K

Votes421

CodeMirror

Stacks747

Followers232

Votes15

CodeMirror vs Notepad++: What are the differences?

What is CodeMirror? In-browser code editor used in the dev tools for both Firefox and Chrome, Light Table, Adobe Brackets, Bitbucket, and many other projects. CodeMirror is a JavaScript component that provides a code editor in the browser. When a mode is available for the language you are coding in, it will color your code, and optionally help with indentation.

What is Notepad++? Free source code editor and Notepad replacement. Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

CodeMirror and Notepad++ can be primarily classified as "Text Editor" tools.

Some of the features offered by CodeMirror are:

Support for over 60 languages out of the box
A powerful, composable language mode system
Autocompletion (XML)

On the other hand, Notepad++ provides the following key features:

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4
PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace

"Integrable in your application" is the primary reason why developers consider CodeMirror over the competitors, whereas "Syntax for all languages that i use" was stated as the key factor in picking Notepad++.

CodeMirror is an open source tool with 17.8K GitHub stars and 3.91K GitHub forks. Here's a link to CodeMirror's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, Notepad++ has a broader approval, being mentioned in 182 company stacks & 483 developers stacks; compared to CodeMirror, which is listed in 24 company stacks and 11 developer stacks.

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Advice on Notepad++, CodeMirror

Andrey

Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers

May 18, 2020

Decided

Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark

539k views539k

Comments

René

Sr. Financial Analyst

Aug 21, 2020

Review

I have used and like them both... here's my take on what to use in your case.

Use whatever software your instructor is using when learning a language. It makes it simpler to start. Then change to whatever you like.
Use an IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment). For Java I'd pick InteliJ (because I have found the Jetbrains IDEs great) or Visual Studio as a second pick (because it's free for individual coders).
Pick your text editor: the Atom vs Notepad++, vs others question Both Atom and Notepad++ offer many features and add-ons, making it a long-disputed competition. This is what drives to chose between one and the other, and I have been alternating: On Atom: The good:

Good looking coding environment
Good autocomplete
Project focused structure to your files The bad:
Higher system resources usage
Slower loading time (if you are opening and closing)

Notepad++ The good:

Very light system resources use
Fast and simple, with decent code higlighting
Loads very fast The bad:
Not as pretty as Atom
Autocomplete and syntax checking is not that good
File-focused editing

483 views483

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Notepad++	CodeMirror
Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.	CodeMirror is a JavaScript component that provides a code editor in the browser. When a mode is available for the language you are coding in, it will color your code, and optionally help with indentation.
Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding;User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4;PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace;GUI entirely customizable: minimalist, tab with close button, multi-line tab, vertical tab and vertical document list;Document Map;Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion and Function parameters hint;Multi-Document (Tab interface);Multi-View;WYSIWYG (Printing);Zoom in and zoom out;Multi-Language environment supported;Bookmark;Macro recording and playback;Launch with different arguments	Support for over 60 languages out of the box;A powerful, composable language mode system;Autocompletion (XML);Code folding;Configurable keybindings;Vim, Emacs, and Sublime Text bindings;Search and replace interface;Bracket and tag matching;Support for split views;Linter integration;Mixing font sizes and styles;Various themes;Able to resize to fit content;Inline and block widgets;Programmable gutters;Making ranges of text styled, read-only, or atomic;Bi-directional text support
Statistics
Stacks 20.4K	Stacks 747
Followers 16.8K	Followers 232
Votes 421	Votes 15
Pros & Cons
Pros 104 Syntax for all languages that i use 60 Tabbed ui 56 Great code editor 54 Fast and lightweight 38 Plugins Cons 3 No default plugin manager 2 Can't install more advanced packets	Pros 6 Integrable in your application 4 Better content manipulation methods 3 Easy Custom Mode 1 JavaScript based 1 Easy setup
Integrations
No integrations available	Google Chrome Sublime Text Opera Browser Safari Vim Emacs Firefox

What are some alternatives to Notepad++, CodeMirror?

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform.

Atom

At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.

Vim

Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.

Visual Studio Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

Emacs

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

Brackets

With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, it is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.

Neovim

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

VSCodium

It is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VSCode.

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

gedit

gedit is the GNOME text editor. While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, gedit is a powerful general purpose text editor.

Related Comparisons

Some of the features offered by CodeMirror are:

Support for over 60 languages out of the box
A powerful, composable language mode system
Autocompletion (XML)

On the other hand, Notepad++ provides the following key features:

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4
PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace

CodeMirror is an open source tool with 17.8K GitHub stars and 3.91K GitHub forks. Here's a link to CodeMirror's open source repository on GitHub.

CodeMirror vs Notepad++