When you are working on your website, it is critical that you have a top-notch code editor. Without one, it would be difficult to accomplish anything, whether it has to do with changes or just writing your code. My goal with this article is to help you choose the best code editor for you, based on the factors that matter the most. I’ve taken different aspects into account with this guide, so check out the information below so you can decide what works best for you.
Marketers use blogging tools like Grammarly and Hemingway to spell-check their posts and improve their readability? Developers can use similar tools to help them write and improve their code. Using a code editor will do the trick.
Ideally, a code editor will provide at least the basic functionality you need to write code faster and easier. This includes spell checking, syntax highlighting, and auto-completion. While such a basic editor might be ideal for beginner coders, experienced coders might prefer a more advanced editor.
When you start with coding and what to edit your HTML and CSS files. The greatest challenge is to find the best editor for your coding editing. So we will talk about this what kind of IDE or Editor you can use and download.
What is an HTML editor?
An HTML editor is a type of software that helps web developers create clean HTML code in a convenient and functional way. There are two types of HTML Editors: text editors and WYSIWYG editors.
Text Editors use features like autocompletion to help you write code. If you start to type HTML code, the text editor will automatically add the closing tag for you.
WYSIWYG editors are great for first-time website builders because they display what the website will look like when you add, delete, or modify HTML code.
The best HTML editors will provide the functionality you need to write code correctly — and to write it faster thanks to autocompletion. Ideally, an HTML editor will provide a clean interface, syntax highlighting, and a preview of tools in the operating system you use.
It’s important to understand that any text editor works for HTML documents, but some are optimized for the syntax of a specific language. To highlight the best for HTML and CSS, respectively, we’ve divided the following code editors into two sections. Let’s get started.
UltraEdit
G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
UltraEdit is designed to be an all-in-one solution. It solves every challenge a developer or IT professional faces: programming and project management, text data and record reformatting, data sorting, large file manipulation, remote file operations, advanced file searching, and more.
That means it’s ideal for advanced users working on their own or in enterprise companies. It’s not for beginners or hobbyists, and the price reflects this. You can purchase for a one-time fee of $119.95 or $189.95, or pay an annual subscription of $79.95 or $99.95. While none of these price points are unreasonable, they are high compared to the alternatives on the list.
Pros
- A feature-rich, comprehensive solution for developers and IT professionals
- Can easily handle large file edits without impacting performance
- Effective search and organization functionality
Cons
- Steepest price point on this list
- Some users cite minor UI flaws
Price
UltraEdit is available as a subscription or a one-time purchase. Subscriptions are $79.95 and $99.95 annually. One-time purchases are $119.95 and $189.95.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is possibly the best JavaScript ide for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not only does it support JavaScript, but it also supports Node.js, TypeScript, and it comes with a whole ecosystem of extensions for other languages including C++, C#, Python, PHP, etc.
It provides great syntax highlighting and autocomplete with IntelliSense based on variable types, function definitions, and imported modules. It also allows you to debug code by launching or attaching to your running apps debug with breakpoints, call stacks, and an interactive console. You can effortlessly integrate a JavaScript UI library into Visual Studio Code. All in all, this IDE for JavaScript is definitely one to check out. An important note – it is free to use.
To get the most productivity out of the Visual Studio Code, we recommend this quick 1-hour online course, which will guide you through adding custom hotkeys, creating templates and boilerplates to increase coding speed, integrating with GitHub to be able to work on Git repositories without leaving VS Code.
Alboom Prosite
Alboom Prosite is an online HTML editor that helps you create landing pages, custom forms, and entire websites from scratch.
You can use the website building tool to simplify website navigation for your customers and capture leads through in-built forms. Alboom also helps you make changes to your website, update sections with a text editor, and optimize it for mobile devices.
Additionally, you can integrate social media platforms on the website to make it easier for customers to share content. The HTML text editor software also features HTTPS security and SSL encryption for your website to make it secure for visitors.
Alboom Prosite offers email and chat support and is web-based.
Atom
Atom is one of the most popular HTML editors in the market, and for good reasons. This open-source code editor aims to offer premium tools while keeping them completely free. In addition, it comes with open-source packages maintained by the GitHub community.
Web developers can add, modify, and share various source codes to improve Atom’s functionality. They can also customize their interface by choosing the pre-installed themes or creating their own.
Although Atom doesn’t come with a visual editor, it offers a live preview of your webpage. Thus, you can spot errors easily and fix the code in the text editor.
In addition to writing HTML code, Atom supports multiple programming languages, such as JavaScript, Node.js, and CSS. It’s also well-integrated with Teletype for easy project collaboration with other developers.
Other Atom features include:
- Built-in package manager – more than 80 built-in packages available. Users can add up to 8,700 additional packages, as well as develop custom packages.
- Multiple panes – split its interface into multiple windows to easily compare and write code across different files.
- Syntax highlighting – makes it easier to spot errors and identify different code types and coding languages.
- Smart auto-completion – helps users to create code faster with its smart autosuggestions.
Atom is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (64-bit).
NoteTab
G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
NoteTab gives you complete control over your HTML code and speeds up the creation process. With this editor, you can insert tags and other HTML code from a toolbar, drag-and-drop code snippets from a list to your document, or insert them using a keyboard, and use the auto-complete feature to insert tags as you type. There’s also a multilingual spell checker included and a customized input controller for syntax highlighting.
What really sets NoteTab apart is that it’s the only HTML editor offering support for Bootstrap CSS. This will enable you to build a Bootstrap site faster with NoteTab than with any other editor.
Some drawbacks are that NoteTab does not support git. It also currently only offers syntax highlighting for HTML, XML, and CSS files, so this is not for you if you’re working with JavaScript, PHP, or some other programming languages.
Pros
- Flexible enough to support the needs of a range of developers
- Large extension library for further customization
- Supports the Bootstrap CSS framework
Cons
- No integration with git
- Only highlights HTML, XMS, and CSS syntax
Price
NoteTab is available as a free light version and as a paid version, which retails for $39.95.
Notepad ++
Notepad++ is a free, open-source HTML editor developed for Windows-based computers. The program is lightweight and comes with a straightforward user interface. A mobile version is available for developers to code on the go without installing it into Windows.
Notepad++ is distributed as free software, and its repository is available on GitHub. Although this HTML editor is exclusive for Windows platforms, Linux users can use this program via Wine to add a compatibility layer.
Its flexible user interface allows users to choose between split or full-screen layouts when coding. On a split-screen layout, users can work on two different documents simultaneously.
This advanced text editor also has multi-language support for web development, from HTML and CSS to JavaScript and PHP.
Other highlights from Notepad++ include:
- Powerful code editing tools – as a Scintilla-based text editor, Notepad++ ensures fast processing speed with lighter program size.
- Plugin integrations – extend functionality and add more advanced features by creating new plugins or installing third-party plugins from the list.
- FTP connection – helps users to directly connect to server files and edit them from the dashboard.
- Document map – displays overview and sections of a document, making it easier for users to navigate within a larger file.
Notepad++ is available for Windows and Linux (only via Wine).
RJ TextEd
RJ TextEd is high on our list fighting for the spot of the best IDE for JavaScript. It is a full-featured text and source editor with Unicode support and all in all, a great IDE for web development.
It supports not only JavaScript, but also PHP, ASP, HTML, and CSS. Some of the most important features of this web development IDE include but are not limited to:
- Auto-completion.
- Code folding
- Column mode
- Multi-edit and multi-select
- Document map
- Annotation bar
- Advanced sorting
- Handles both ASCII and binary files
- CSS and HTML wizards
- Highlighting of colors in CSS/SASS/LESS
- An advanced color hint that can convert between color formats
- Dockable panels
- FTP and SFTP client with synchronization
- File explorer, text clips, code explorer, project manager
- Convert between code pages, Unicode formats and text formats
- Unicode and ANSI code page detection
- Open/Save UTF-8 encoded files without a signature (BOM)
- Unicode file paths and file names
- HTML validation, format, and repair
- Tools available like syntax editor, color picker, charmap
Conclusion:
A code editor can help you create code faster while avoiding errors. It’s a must-have for your web development toolkit. When making your selection for the best HTML editor, make sure its capabilities align with your needs.
Whether you need a basic editor with syntax highlighting and live preview options or a more sophisticated editor with an advanced find-and-replace tool and code snippet library, we hope you’ll find one or more of these features among the options we’ve listed.
Looking for the best code editor? Trying to decide between Sublime Text, Atom Editor, Brackets? Or perhaps Vim and Emacs. There’s a lot of options and it can be overwhelming. I’ve tested many code editors and narrowed it down to the one that I use every day. This article has recommended the best code editor for you — based on your skill level — whether you’re new to coding or eager to start mastering some code.