Atom vs. Overleaf

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
Overleaf
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Overleaf is a collaborative writing and publishing system designed to make the process of producing academic papers much quicker for both authors and publishers, from Writelatex Limited in London.N/A
Pricing
AtomOverleaf
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AtomOverleaf
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AtomOverleaf
Best Alternatives
AtomOverleaf
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
AtomOverleaf
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AtomOverleaf
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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Overleaf is great for writing scientific and research documents, especially when there is a lot of technical detail and mathematics involved. It shines when using complicated formats such as double column, or changing font sizes and still maintaining professional looking formatting. One of the best features is the collaborative writing with people in your team. You can work on a document together, leave notes and comments for the other person to read, and if you have the paid subscription the version history feature is great. The only time I think Overleaf is not suitable is when the document complexity does not justify it - for a simple document without mathematics and just a few paragraphs, or a rough document which does not need to be shared - a simple Microsoft Word document will be better
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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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  • Teamwork
  • Organizing
  • Reliable
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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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  • Version history is a great feature but only available in the paid version
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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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No answers on this topic
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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It's easy to use for a variety of skill levels. It has most features you could want from an text editor and LaTeX editor. Collaboration is easy for all skill levels including for first time users. The UI is pleasant enough and the website is quick to load. All the packages you need are available.
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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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No answers on this topic
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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Alongside Overleaf, we have tried using Microsoft Word and Google Docs to write reports. While they all let you write in the same document at once, Overleaf just works better for us. Microsoft Word locks the paragraph someone else is working on to avoid others messing with it before the original writer is done. However, it is often slow to open those paragraphs up for others to edit. Google Docs is the hardest one of them to make a good layout on, though with the app, it can be good for proofreading on the go.
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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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  • Improved collaboration speed
  • Seamless transition from various computers and platforms
  • Improved learning how to use LaTeX
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ScreenShots