Atom vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Atom
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.N/A
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.N/A
Pricing
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Best Alternatives
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AtomMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
Atom is great for developers looking for a completely hackable experience. There is a ton of plugins available to you, and you can really build an editor that matches your own personal taste. The performance is also pretty neat and does not impact your CPU as much as the competition.
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If your Source Control Software is Team Foundation Server then skip Visual Studio Code. If you're using GitHub and are creating small projects Visual Studio Code is the way to go. If you need to create a large, enterprise-level application, Visual Studio Code makes it easier to set up interactions between related projects (client & server). If you're interested in getting back to the old way of using the command line to create projects and you know what to enter in the console window then Visual Studio Code is great. Visual Studio Code is a better choice if you don't know the console commands and prefer to make selections from a menu.
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Pros
  • 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!
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  • Robust plugin architecture replete with fantastic add-ons that make developer life delightful.
  • Integrated Terminal window allows you to stay in one application to perform most required tasks.
  • Customization options are robust. It is easy to modify VS Code to your own specifications.
  • It's free! Hard to believe such a well made, well maintained, robust software is a free download.
  • Command+P/Command+Shift+P key commands will improve your workflow dramatically.
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Cons
  • Due to some default settings, when I opened the file in Atom and commit it on Git it shows almost every line is changed so my PR is looking too big/ugly.
  • I think omitting the empty spaces should not be the default setting.
  • Performance needs some attention.
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  • Unlike for most languages I have used, Ruby and Rails support available for Code users isn't great. The most popular Ruby extension is unofficial, and leaves much to desire. As an example, code navigation even with language server Solargraph installed isn't as good as IntelliJ's RubyMine.
  • Even there is quite good support for a language or a framework, it is almost never as good as a dedicated IDE for it. In terms of the sheer number of features available, IntelliJ IDEs handily beat Code.
  • Microsoft has close-sourced some of the extensions it develops for Code itself, e.g. Pylance for Python, and that has not been perceived as a good move for open-source.
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Likelihood to Renew
Well Atom is open source so the re-new is a no brainer. The only way I would stop using Atom is if the developers somehow made it not function well. Or, if the project got forked to a commercial version or something. Or, there could be the case that development stops or that it was not updated on this or that platform
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Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost.
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Usability
I give Atom a 9 because it is one of the most modern text editors built with JavaScript intentionally to allow the editor to be changed and modified with custom functionality that a team may need. I think I would otherwise give atom an 8 due to support, but it gets a 9/10 because of the extensibility/plugin capability.
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Looking at our current implementation, Microsoft Visual Studio Code is perfect for writing code and performing debug operations. Integration with SVN repository is easy and changes can be tracked effectively. Microsoft Visual Studio Code supports developers to write code productively using syntax check and easy customization. Microsoft Visual Studio Code also provides support for IntelliSense which prompts suggestions for code completion. It is easy to step through code using interactive debugger to inspect the root cause of error quickly.
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Support Rating
Atom has an active forum and a Slack group where you can ask technical questions. Occasionally, the authors will pop in to answer a few questions here and there, but most of the time, its other helpful users who will assist you. Though they aren't the most knowledgeable, they are at least timely.
As for plugin support, that differs with each plugin, but as I mentioned before, many plugins are no longer maintained.
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Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting, Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues.
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Implementation Rating
Just download and install
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Atom is incredibly lighter than Dreamweaver, of course it doesn't have the tools DW provides in terms of preview and clicking an element to be taken to the code... but for small web pages this is not necessary.
Atom is more similar to Notepad++ and the very popular vs code... but I prefer it to vs code because of the themes (although i found recently some new additions that are similar to my favourite) and just the feeling when navigating/typing is not the same, it's very hard to describe... but it just doesn't feel "right"
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All the previously listed are incredible development environments that perfectly fulfill this function, but [Microsoft] Visual Studio Code goes one step ahead by providing flexibility, customization and adaptability to development environments with its own methodology, for all this productivity. of the work team is greatly increased helping to achieve the objectives set in the organization.
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Return on Investment
  • ROI can be said as neutral because eventually, we have to switch to another text editor because of many limitations of Atom for large code.
  • In starting stage of the project, everything was fine and things were happening as expected
  • Overall it has been a great experience using Atom in my organization but many challenges were faced so that's something Atom should work on.
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  • Saves money by replacing suites of tools such as Visual Studio, IntelliJ, etc.
  • Speeds development time and developer environment setup time
  • Strengthens code quality with integrated autoformatting and linting
  • Strengths Git practices by keeping version control tightly connected with the code
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ScreenShots