Atom vs WebStorm

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Atom vs WebStorm: What are the differences?

Introduction

Markdown code is a popular markup language used for formatting text on websites. In this task, we will be providing key differences between Atom and WebStorm, two popular integrated development environments (IDEs) used by developers.

  1. Customizability: Atom offers a high level of customizability, allowing users to personalize their IDE according to their preferences. It provides a wide range of community-developed themes, plugins, and packages that can be easily installed to enhance the functionality and appearance of the editor. On the other hand, WebStorm has limited customization options compared to Atom, with a more focused approach on providing a stable and consistent development environment.

  2. Supported Languages: Atom has extensive support for a wide variety of programming languages. It provides syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and linting features for multiple languages, making it suitable for developers working with diverse technology stacks. Conversely, WebStorm is primarily designed for JavaScript and related web development languages. While it does offer some support for other languages, it may not be as comprehensive as Atom.

  3. Code Navigation and Refactoring: WebStorm excels in code navigation and refactoring capabilities. It offers powerful features such as intelligent code completion, code analysis, and automated refactoring tools. These features enable developers to quickly navigate through codebases, identify potential issues, and perform complex code transformations with ease. Atom provides similar functionality but may not be as advanced as WebStorm in this aspect.

  4. Integrated Version Control: WebStorm has seamless integration with various version control systems, such as Git, Mercurial, and Subversion. It offers a built-in terminal, visual diff tool, and branch management, allowing developers to conveniently perform version control operations without leaving the IDE. Atom also has Git integration but may not provide the same level of integration and dedicated version control features as WebStorm.

  5. Performance and Resource Usage: Atom is known for its flexibility and extensibility, but it can be resource-intensive compared to WebStorm. Atom's extensive customization options and the large number of installed packages can sometimes lead to slower loading times and higher memory usage. WebStorm, on the other hand, is optimized for performance and tends to have faster startup times and lower memory footprint.

  6. Price and Licensing: Atom is an open-source project developed by GitHub and is available for free. It can be customized, extended, and used by individuals, teams, and organizations without any licensing restrictions. WebStorm, on the contrary, is a commercial IDE developed by JetBrains. It offers a free 30-day trial but requires a license purchase for continued usage, making it a paid solution for professional development.

In summary, Atom is highly customizable, supports multiple programming languages, and offers a range of community-developed packages. WebStorm, on the other hand, is primarily focused on JavaScript development, provides advanced code navigation and refactoring tools, has tight integration with version control systems, optimized for performance, but comes with a price tag.

Advice on Atom and WebStorm
Johnny Bell

When I switched to Visual Studio Code 12 months ago from PhpStorm I was in love, it was great. However after using VS Code for a year, I see myself switching back and forth between WebStorm and VS Code. The VS Code plugins are great however I notice Prettier, auto importing of components and linking to the definitions often break, and I have to restart VS Code multiple times a week and sometimes a day.

We use Ruby here so I do like that Visual Studio Code highlights that for me out of the box, with WebStorm I'd need to probably also install RubyMine and have 2 IDE's going at the same time.

Should I stick with Visual Studio Code, or switch to something else? #help

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Replies (15)
Erik Ostrom
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you're working with both Ruby and JavaScript, buy RubyMine and shut down the other two. It's much better for Ruby than Visual Studio Code is. It can also do everything WebStorm does, if you install the plugins you need from JetBrains, and they all work together nicely.

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Marc Swikull
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you install RubyMine, you shouldn't need WebStorm, as all the functionality of WebStorm appears to be included in RubyMine. (See here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/132950).

I've used PhpStorm for several years and have never needed to open (or even download) WebStorm for anything front-end or JavaScript related.

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Russel Werner
Lead Engineer at StackShare · | 6 upvotes · 259.3K views
Recommends
on
WebStormWebStorm
at

I work at the same company as you and I use WebStorm for 99% of my tasks. I also have RubyMine installed and use that when I have to tweak some backend code. I tried using RubyMine for JavaScript but was unhappy with how it felt and I believe that WebStorm is faster because it has less plugins and language extensions running. Summary: Buy and use WebStorm for primary development and keep VS Code around for when you have to touch Ruby.

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Danny Battison
Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

JetBrains all the way - my entire team uses PhpStorm and none of us would even consider switching.

The availability of IDEs for other languages along with consistency in environment and keyboard shortcuts is also a godsend, which is the reason I'd also choose Rider over Visual Studio (but also VS for Mac is trash, but I digress...)

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I've never had much issue running multiple IDEs and generally pick them based on the languages they best support. For front end work where I mainly use TypeScript, I stick heavily with Visual Studio Code. However, for backend work which we do primarily in Python, PyCharm is my go-to editor. The one thing that I do however is I do remap keyboard shortcuts so I get consistent keyboard ability even when I switch IDEs.

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

So here is the deal man, bottom line you want to write code. All of these tools are built in a mouse-driven world, they are designed not for engineers, but office monkeys. If you want a real workflow that gives you ultimate performance, customization and speed you need to use a modal editor, I suggest NeoVim. Start using it 20% of the time on single file edits, watch youtube videos about it and teach yourself vim gestures. It will infuriate you for 6 weeks, make you cry for another 2 months. But as you use it more, as long as your usage goes over 40% of the time, in 6 months you will understand why most of the world's too engineers use it. Settling on lesser editors out of laziness is exactly the attitude that results in shitty the engineering. Yeah it's hard. You're smart. You do hard things. Once it isn't hard anymore you will blow yourself away at how much more efficiently you edit files.

Also vim keybindings in a mouse driven editor does not cut it. Managing files, buffers and workflow is half of the value of vim/neovim. It is OK if you have to use an IDE (currently I only use an IDE for java development, so I have little choice)

So use VSCode while you teach yourself vim.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If I have to choose one I would go with VS Code; it’s become pretty mature and keeps getting better. If those plugins are creating problems for you then just uninstall them, find an alternative, or make a PR to fix. But at the end of the day these are IDE’s and they are meant to save you time. I would go with whatever helps you develop code faster. If restarting VS code slows you down then make a switch, that personally would annoying the crap out of me. Else maybe it’s a quick restart, not the end of the word, hopefully someone will fix at some point.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a text editor. And this is best option in my opinion. For Ruby, I cannot say how VS Code is good. If you wanna choose IDE, RubyMine should fit your needs. Because IDEs are more compatible with major needs. But text editors are just text editor. You can do same things with also text editors. I recommend to try both VS Code and RubyMine. And you will be able to find which fits better for your needs

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Recommends
at

Visiual Studio is the best

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If you find something that works and are comfortable with it, stay with it. Changing IDE's and learning their idiosyncrasies takes valuable time away from programming while learning setups and keyboard short cuts. I personally use VS Code for cost and decent multiple language support. I've had issues occasionally with it locking up, but it is under heavy development and continually improving. I have also found it more intuitive for new programmers. ** Having profiles for different languages can reduce the amount of plugins running and issues they can cause.

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Kyle Schoonover
Senior Software Engineer at Nordstrom · | 2 upvotes · 222K views
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I'm personally a Visual Studio Code fan. I've used it for both Go and Java. It really depends on the quality and support of the plugins. Typically VS Code doesn't crash as much as a bad plugin causes an unforeseen error. Make sure you stay up to date and look at alternative plugins.

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

I usually have both running but do the bulk of my language work in the appropriate JetBrains flavor. One thing to watch out for in VS is that under the hood it is running the tools needed for whatever language you are working with. This is where tools like JetBrains shine. While I am sure you can tune the heck out of what you use in VS, the provides context and clarity...

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Lungu Alexandru-Mihai
Recommends
on
VimVim

Well you can try for a while MacVim because it is already configured with tons of plugins. My favourite text editors are Sublime Text and TextMate which are lightweight and speedy. My feeling is that JetBrains IDEs are making you brainless.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Are you using the prettier-vscode VSCode extension or prettier via prettier-eslint? The prettier-vscode extension recommends you...

Use prettier-eslint instead of prettier. Other settings will only be fallbacks in case they could not be inferred from ESLint rules.

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Recommends

An integrated development environment software with huge potential in the future is VS Code. So I would personally say you can use VS code.

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Decisions about Atom and WebStorm
Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 489.5K 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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Pros of Atom
Pros of WebStorm
  • 529
    Free
  • 449
    Open source
  • 343
    Modular design
  • 321
    Hackable
  • 316
    Beautiful UI
  • 170
    Github integration
  • 147
    Backed by github
  • 119
    Built with node.js
  • 113
    Web native
  • 107
    Community
  • 35
    Packages
  • 18
    Cross platform
  • 5
    Multicursor support
  • 5
    Nice UI
  • 5
    TypeScript editor
  • 3
    Snippets
  • 3
    Simple but powerful
  • 3
    Open source, lots of packages, and so configurable
  • 3
    cli start
  • 3
    Chrome Inspector works IN EDITOR
  • 2
    Awesome
  • 2
    Smart TypeScript code completion
  • 2
    Well documented
  • 2
    It's powerful
  • 2
    Code readability
  • 1
    works with GitLab
  • 1
    User friendly
  • 1
    full support
  • 1
    vim support
  • 1
    Split-Tab Layout
  • 1
    "Free", "Hackable", "Open Source", The Awesomness
  • 1
    Apm publish minor
  • 1
    Hackable and Open Source
  • 1
    Consistent UI on all platforms
  • 0
    Publish
  • 187
    Intelligent ide
  • 128
    Smart development environment
  • 108
    Easy js debugging
  • 97
    Code inspection
  • 95
    Support for the Latest Technologies
  • 55
    Created by jetbrains
  • 53
    Cross-platform ide
  • 36
    Integration
  • 30
    Spellchecker
  • 24
    Language Mixing/Injection
  • 11
    Debugger
  • 10
    Local History
  • 8
    Web developer can't live without this
  • 7
    Fast search
  • 7
    Git support
  • 6
    Angular.js support
  • 6
    Sass autocompletion
  • 5
    Better refactoring options
  • 5
    FTP
  • 5
    There is no need to setup plugins (all from the box)
  • 5
    Show color on the border next to hex string in CSS
  • 5
    Smart autocompletion
  • 5
    JSON Schema
  • 5
    Awesome
  • 5
    Built-in js debugger
  • 5
    Running and debugging Node.js apps remotely
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 4
    A modern IDE stuck in the 90s
  • 4
    TypeScript support
  • 4
    Smart coding assistance for React
  • 4
    Node.js integration
  • 4
    111
  • 4
    Protractor support out of the box
  • 4
    Intelligent
  • 4
    Paid but easy to crack
  • 3
    Dart support
  • 3
    Solid intelligent features
  • 3
    Great app
  • 3
    Integrated terminal
  • 3
    Vagrant and SSH Console
  • 3
    Free for students
  • 3
    Unused imports inspection
  • 3
    Docker intergration
  • 2
    Remote Files Syncronization
  • 2
    Grate debug tools for React Apps
  • 2
    Easier to keep running than eclipse
  • 1
    Auto imports
  • 1
    Vim support
  • 1
    Rename helpers
  • 1
    Auto refactoring helpers
  • 1
    Less autocompletion
  • 1
    GIT partial commits

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Cons of Atom
Cons of WebStorm
  • 19
    Slow with large files
  • 7
    Slow startup
  • 2
    Most of the time packages are hard to find.
  • 1
    No longer maintained
  • 1
    Cannot Run code with F5
  • 1
    Can be easily Modified
  • 4
    Paid
  • 1
    Expensive

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