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Atom

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14.3K
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2.7K
Notepad++

19.8K
16.3K
+ 1
417
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Atom vs Notepad++: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Atom and Notepad++

1. Customization: Atom offers extensive customization options with its built-in package manager, allowing users to personalize their editor by installing various themes, color schemes, and plugins. On the other hand, Notepad++ provides limited customization options, primarily focused on the editor's appearance.

2. Community Support: Atom boasts a vibrant and active community that constantly contributes to the development of the editor. This results in a vast library of community-created packages, themes, and plugins that enhance the functionality of Atom. Notepad++ also has a supportive community; however, it is smaller compared to Atom's and has a more limited selection of community-created resources.

3. Collaboration and Remote Editing: Atom's collaboration features, such as Teletype, allow real-time code pairing and remote collaboration with other developers. Notepad++ lacks such in-built collaboration capabilities, making it more suitable for individual use rather than collaborative coding sessions.

4. Cross-Platform Compatibility: While both Atom and Notepad++ are available for multiple operating systems, Atom has an advantage when it comes to cross-platform compatibility. Being built on web technologies, Atom provides a consistent experience across different operating systems, ensuring a familiar interface and workflow regardless of the user's platform. Notepad++ offers a native Windows version, limiting its compatibility with other operating systems.

5. Git Integration: Atom comes with built-in Git integration, allowing developers to manage their version control directly from within the editor. Notepad++ lacks native Git integration, requiring users to install external plugins or use separate Git applications to perform version control tasks.

6. Package Ecosystem: Atom boasts a robust package ecosystem, with a wide range of community-contributed packages that extend its functionality. These packages cover areas like linting, code formatting, language support, and much more. Notepad++ also has a collection of plugins but the breadth and scope of its package ecosystem are not as extensive as Atom's.

In summary, Atom provides more customization options, benefits from a larger community support, offers collaborative features, has better cross-platform compatibility, includes native Git integration, and boasts a more extensive package ecosystem compared to Notepad++.

Decisions about Atom and Notepad++
Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 491.4K views

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

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Felix Hungenberg
Graphic Designer & Web Developer at hosting.de GmbH · | 2 upvotes · 111.1K views

I use Visual Studio Code every day, it was very refreshing coming from Atom to get a lightweight, all i need setup right out of the box.

After working with Atom for around 2 years I switch to VSCode.

Here is why:

  1. Color display of variables in code. This may now sound much, but it improve the display of scss variables and its a core feature.
  2. Out of the box features.
  3. Automation! VSCode suggests usefull things to you.
  4. Integraded console. I love the console in VSCode. It is faster than my 'default' cmd on Windows. For Atom you would have to install a package, that doesn't work so well on Windows.
  5. Output logging per Plugin.
  6. Setup time. In VSCode I can set up my workspace in under 5 minutes. For Atom I need
  7. Plugins work perfect out of the box. This is a mayor one for me. For example: In order to set up Editorconfig you have to adjust mutliple values and plugins to get it work. Plugin creators of Editorconfig for Atom are not to blame: They include a linter, that verifies whether the settings are correct or not.
  8. Git implementation. VSCode ships with Git and even if the git packet of vscode doesn't look like much, theres a lot to it. For example you can watch changes inline.
  9. Minimap and vertical scrollbar. This feature is much better implementet in VSCode and you don't need an extra plugin.
  10. Auto completion. Sass mixins example: @include and you press CTRL+SPACE and VSCode shows you every Sass mixin.
  11. Copy paths from open file tab. In VSCode you can copy the path of an file directly when you have it open. In atom you need to select 'show in tree view' and than copy the path or relative path.
  12. Tree view. The tree view VSCode automaticly brings you to the current open file by default. This helps when working with components.
  13. File search. The file search supports the asterisk so you can search for eg molecule-*.ts.
  14. Tasks support. Tasks are integrated in VSCode so eg. for Typescript you can CTRL + SHIFT + B and select tsc: watch - tsconfig.ts.
  15. Short waiting time. For example when deleting files or beautifying 20.000 lines of json (Atom hangs up).
  16. More releases. Faster feature implementation. Active community.
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