Coding is more than just entering some text and pressing some buttons. Code editing is as important as coding. That’s why it is important to ensure that you have the right code editor. While there are many editors you can go for, these are the ones that will help you in your development.
Nowadays usability in software is the key point for development. There are a lot of code editor, but choosing the best code editor can do your coding much easier. Today I would like to recommend to you the best free code editors, including Sublime Text Code Editor, Atom Code Editor, Brackets Code Editor, VS Code Editor.
Sublime Text
It is a beautiful and sophisticated feature-rich text editor which gives you a premium experience during coding, editing code, markup and prose experience. This cross-platform and open-source code was editor built from custom components, which provides unmatched responsiveness and syntax highlighting engine and sets the bar for performance.
- Open files with only a few keystrokes, and instantly jump to symbols, lines or words with Go to Anything.
- Allow you to interactively change many lines at once, renaming variables manipulating files faster than ever with Multiple selections.
- Provides Powerful python API and simple access to thousands of useful Packages.
- Customize just anything like menus, snippets, macros, completions with simple JSON files.
- Edit files side by side, or edit two locations in the one file, Edit with as many rows and columns as you wish with split editing support.
- Switch between projects instantly with no save prompts, all modifications restored till the project is reopened.
Notepad++
One of the most well-known code editors that developers all over the world have been using for quite a while is Notepad++. This amazing application was developed in C++. The initial launch version was very simple. It didn’t have a lot of functions back then, but Notepad++ garnered tons of positive reviews.
Not only developers but casual users also prefer using this tool over Windows’ native notepad application.
Using the pure win32 API, the Notepad++ has an amazing execution speed, which is great for the modern gen machines. Thanks to improved execution times, code compilation spans over a matter of few seconds. This helps programmers to get things done right away.
This application is only compatible with the Windows platform at the moment. It uses a GPL license to work. If you are a Mac fan, don’t worry. We have a couple of code editors appended down the list. Just keep glossing over it.
Key Features
- Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion
- User-defined Syntax highlighting and folding
- Multi-view and Multi-Language support
- Support syntax highlighting for languages like PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
- Macro recording and playback
- Entirely customizable GUI
- Autosave
- Guided indentation
- Macros
- Split-screen editing and synchronized scrolling
Pricing
- Free
Visual studio code
Visual studio code commonly referred to as VS code, is one of the best code editors in the market. VS code is a product of Microsoft. Like many Microsoft brands, VS code is a cross-platform editor. Developers can use this powerful tool either on Windows, Linux, and mac. VS Code has powerful features that will fully support developers’ work. With the VS code, you are assured of fast system debugging and auto-completion.
Key features
- Cross-platform
- Built-in Git and git commands
- Reliable autocomplete and syntax highlighting using IntelliSense
- Debugging code right from the editor
- Easy to integrate with terminal
- Extensions for customizing and extending functionalities
- Ease of deploying projects to such platform as Microsoft Azure
- Compatible with almost every programming language
- Easy to use
- Lightweight and robust as compared to other editors
Platforms
- Windows
- macOS
- Linux
Atom
There are many text editors out there; why should you spend your time learning about and using Atom?
Editors like Sublime and TextMate offer convenience but only limited extensibility.
On the other end of the spectrum, Emacs and Vim offer extreme flexibility, but they aren’t very approachable and can only be customized with special-purpose scripting languages.
First of all, the Atom editor is entirely free to use.
Atom, a project started by Github, and has established itself as one of the premier code and text editors out there.
Again the best part is that Atom is totally free, open-source, and highly customizable.
It is built around a minimal core, Atom comes with multiple language-specific packages built-in, and the library of community-written ones has exploded over the years since the editor was first released.
Their goal is a zero-compromise combination of hackability and usability: an editor that will be welcoming to an elementary school student on their first day learning to code, but also a tool they won’t outgrow as they develop into seasoned hackers.
As we’ve used Atom to build Atom, what began as an experiment has gradually matured into a tool we can’t live without.
On the surface, Atom is the modern desktop text editor you’ve come to expect. Pop the hood, however, and you’ll discover a system begging to be hacked on.
Key Features:
- Snippets
- Code folding
- A clean preferences UI
- Import TextMate grammars and themes
- Highly extendable
- Highly theme-able
- File system browser
- Teletype
- Multiple cursors and selections
- Multiple panes
- Incredibly passionate community
- Fuzzy finder for quickly opening files
- Fast project-wide search and replace
Platforms
- macOS
- Windows
- Linux
Brackets
A free open source text editor that understands web designing by allowing you a toggle between your code and the browser view hence became very popular among the web designers and front-end developers. It is lightweight yet powerful modern text editor written in JavaScript that makes UI designing super simple With focused visual tools and pre processor support.
- Real-time visualization with connection to your browser,
- Inline editing instead of jumping between file tabs,
- Quick Edit and Live Highlight with Pre processer Support,
- High-speed HTML and CSS workflow with the popular Emmet Extension,
- Cross-platformed and git support with Brackets-Git
NetBeans
Another code editor on this list that as one of the most famous code-editors is NetBeans. It is open-source software that the developers can use to develop applications using programming languages like PHP, Java, and C++, among many others.
This software also contains features like code analyzers that can debug your code for you and also convertors to change anything that needs modification.
If your applications were developed in the recent past, be advised that NetBeans allows you to upgrade all your applications to benefit from the new and improved Java 8 language constructs.
This application is ready to be used on Windows, Linux, and Mac devices.
Key Features
- Offers fast & Smart Code Editing
- Helps you to write bug-free code
- Easy & Efficient Project Management
- Rapid User Interface Development
- Cross-platform support
- Visual debugger
- Static analysis tools
- Code editor
- Code converters
- Multiple language support
- NetBeans Profiler
- Project management
- Batch code analyzers
Pricing
- Free
Bluefish
Bluefish is among the code editors equipped with a lot of features to support your work. It supports the integration of external programs such as weblint to handle error detection or top-level text processing. If you worry about speed and performance, then bluefish are here to fix your worries. Here is a list of the most outstanding or essential features offered by bluefish:
Key features
- Lightweight
- Fast and high performance
- Supports multiple document interface
- Multiple project support
- Powerful search and replace
- Recursive file opening
- Multithreaded support for remote files
- Full-screen editing
- Unlimited redo/undo functionality
- Site download/upload
- Inline spell checker
- Supports nearly every programming language
- Customizable support for programming language
- Zen coding support
- Multiple encoding supports
Platforms
- Windows
- macOS
- Linux
- Solaris
Conclusion:
If you are a web developer, then you’re most like working with code editors. However, finding the best one is not this simple because there are thousands of them out there. This is why we decided to create this article that can help you find the best code editor for different types of projects and needs.