Best IDE for JavaScript Mac? You may already know that it’s either VS Code, WebStorm, Atom, Brackets, Sublime Text or other.
And those are all great tools to develop your web app by JavaScript frontend libraries like ReactJS, AngularJS, MeteorJS, d3.js.
Sublime Text 3
Sublime Text 3 is a flexible, free IDE for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It supports a number of different programming and markup languages, including Python, C, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. The interface is known to be clutter-free and fast.
Features include:
- Code autocompletion – snippets and macros
- Can be tweaked to boost productivity
- Enhanced pane management
- Go to definition
- Go to symbol
- Multiple selections
- Command palette
- Split editing
- Instant project switch
- Customizable key bindings, menus, snippets, and more
4. PyCharm
PyCharm is a decent free IDE for web development in a number of languages, including Python, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Node.js, and more. The IDE is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux and has a paid sister software you can purchase if you’d like something more reliable. According to some users, the free version of PyCharm can be buggy, especially the autocomplete feature.
Features include:
- Easy integration with Git, Mercurial, and SVN
- Customizable interface with VIM emulation
- JavaScript, Python, and Django debuggers,
- Supports Google App Engine
Visual Studio Code
Deemed the best JavaScript IDE for Windows, Mac, and Linux by TMS Outsource and voted the most popular in a 2018 survey by the State of JS, Visual Studio Code is a powerful source code editor that comes with a range of tools for JavaScript development. The IDE comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js. It also has plenty of extensions for other languages (such as C++, C#, Python, and PHP). Developed by Windows, Visual Studio Code is great for new programmers as it explains everything from HTML tags to syntax and error handling.
Features include:
- Syntax highlighting
- Autocomplete with IntelliSense based on variable types
- Function definitions
- Imported modules
- The ability to debug code from the
- Custom hotkeys
- Templates and boilerplates
- Integrating with GitHub
- Intellisense, which provides smart completions based on variable types
- Customizable themes
Atom by GitHub
Atom is a fantastic IDE for JavaScript programming. Because it’s created by GitHub, it means that there is a thriving community to turn to if you run into any issues. It works with Mac, Windows, and Linux and ships with a package manager for installing new packages. The app is highly customizable, but can also be used well without configuring or customizing anything.
Features include:
- Find, preview, and replace text as you type in a file across all projects
- Easily browse and open files and projects in one window
- Teletype tool – enables collaboration with other developers from within the editor
- Very customizable/hackable
- Package manager
IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ IDEA is a Java-centric IDE that is designed to maximize productivity. One of the best features of this IDE is its ability to automatically add handy tools that are relevant to the context. As well as supporting Java languages, it supports HTML, PHP, Python, Ruby, and more. It’s free but has a paid counterpart with a fuller suite of development tools.
Features include:
- Test runner UI
- Code coverage
- Git integration
- Supports multiple build systems
- Extensive database editor and UML designer
- Supports Google App Engine, Grails, GWT
- Deployment and debugging tools for most application servers
- Intelligent text editors for HTML, CSS, and Java
- Integrated version control
- Automates repetitive programming tasks
- Advanced code completion
- Built-in static code analyzers
PHPStorm
PHPStorm is a great coding environment for those who work with PHP frameworks like WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and others. It has an interface that is both great to look at and easy-to-use. It’s compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux and supports a number of different front-end programming languages like HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and more. The IDE can be customized with themes and extensions to enhance your programming experience.
Features include
- Visual debugger
- Automatic code completion
- Error highlighting
- Remote deployment
- Databases/SQL
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript editor
- Command-line tools
- Smart code navigator
- Refactoring and debugging tools
- Docker
- REST Client
- Composer
- Unit testing
Webstorm
Webstorm is a slick IDE that’s feature-rich and user-friendly. It’s designed to produce state-of-the-art web apps and supports languages like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, React, and more. The IDE is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Features include:
- Intelligent code completion
- Multi-line todos
- Automatic refactoring
- Debugger
- Syntax error detection
- Unit testing
- Integration with VCS
- Cross-platform features
- Powerful navigation
- Parameter hints
- Seamless tool integration
- Git integration
NetBeans
NetBeans is a free, easy-to-use IDE that works well with JavaScript, HTML, PHP, C, and C++. As well as supporting a number of different programming languages, it also is available in English, Brazillian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. NetBeans isn’t ideal for those just starting programming, as the package can be tricky to set up.
Features include:
- Line indentation
- Word and bracket matching
- Source code highlighting
- Code refactoring
- Coding tips, templates, and generators available
- Modifiable workspace
Komodo Edit
Komodo Edit is a free and open-source counterpart to the paid Komodo IDE. It is a great programming environment for JavaScript which allows you to work with different frameworks and languages. The IDE works well across Mac, Windows, and Linux and is a great way to test the Komodo platform before committing to Komodo IDE.
Features include:
- Customizable UI (split view and multi-window editing)
- Python and PHP code profiling
- Code collaboration for multi-user editing
- Autocomplete
- Refactoring
- Many available add ons
RJ TextEd
Released as freeware, RJ TextEd is a full-featured text and source editor with Unicode support. It supports JavaScript, PHP, ASP, HTML, and CSS.
Features include:
- Auto-completion
- Code-folding
- Column mode
- Multi-edit and multi-select
- Document map
- Annotation bar
- Advanced sorting
- ASCII and binary files
- CSS and HTML wizards
- Highlighting colors in CSS/SASS/LESS.
- 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
Brackets
Created for web designers by web designers (FWDBWD?), Brackets is a powerful, but lightweight editor that comes with a set of great visual tools and preprocessor supports that allow for easy designing in the browser. The open-source project is free of charge and has a thriving community that is always there to lend a hand. The iDE offers live HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding and supports programming in Perl, Ruby, Java, Python, and many other languages.
Features include:
- Inline editors
- Live preview
- Split view
- Preprocessor Support
- Quick edit and Live Highlight with LESS and SCSS files
- Easy to use UI
- Integration with Theseus (an open-source JavaScript debugger)
- Fast automatic code completion feature
- Plenty of useful extensions available (e.g Autoprefixer, code-folding, markdown preview, smart highlighting, and snippets)
Atom:
GitHub, being a worldwide choice for development sites in recent years, maintains a tool named Atom. Though it is the new one to join the army of excellent text editors, still it has managed to be in the eyes of the developers and make a strong mark. It has a massive user-submitted package library which includes a file system browser, multiple panes and snippets, fuzzy search, quick code folding and a lot more. It works on OSX 10.8 or later. It is free tool also designed for Windows 7 & 8 and Linux.
3. Sublime Text:
If it is a flexible, powerful, lightning-fast programming text editor what you are looking for, then Sublime text is the best out of the lot for you. It provides probably the best interface and has one of the search engines out there. Powerful shortcuts and tools are the key features of Sublime Text. It also has a regent plugin API, making it highly customizable to suit the needs of almost anyone. Although, the full version of the tool is paid, yet the free evaluation period is virtually unlimited, which can be enjoyed for as long as you like. It is available on all the three platforms, i.e. Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux.
4. BBEdit:
BBEdit by Bare Bones has been in the market for over 20 years. It provides numerous pro level features for creating, editing and manipulating text. Its old age doesn’t mean that it is not capable of keeping pace with the newborns in the market. It is still a fast, advanced and a popular one among the users. It allows commanding files, folders, texts and servers all within one software. Recent updates in the application have added text suggestions which come helpful in reading the document. All this comes at a price of $49.99, which is worth this kind of beauty.
5. UltraEdit:
A part of the family of IDM Computer Solutions, UltraEdit can be used to edit JavaScript, HTML, PHP, C/C++ or any other programming language. The key features of this tool include syntax highlighting, column/block editing, file/data sorting, etc. it is available at a price of $79.95/year.
6. TextMate:
This is a tool which has been pride for Apple since a long time. TextMate basically puts forward the use of UNIX command console in a neat and easy to use GUI. Features like search and replace within project, auto-indentation, column selection, word completion from current document, dynamic outlines, regular expression support, etc., are provided in this tool. XCode projects can also be built in the tool as it provides full XCode support. It is a free application.
7. MacVim:
The tool for the pros at text editing is without any doubt, MacVim. Due to its high-tech nature, the app is pretty difficult to understand for the newbies, but if you really want to cling on to text editing, this is the “chosen one” for you. The most unique thing about this software is its bringing of standard OS X keyboard shortcuts, lessening the learning curve quite a bit. There are transparent backgrounds and full-screen mode for distraction-free coding. It is available for all the platforms and comes free at hand.
We know that there are many text editing tools and applications out in the market. But the above are the ones which we’ve liked and thought that our readers would believe the same.
Conclusion
A lot of people ask me which IDE they should be using for coding in Javascript. In this article, I’m going to share my list of the best IDEs for JavaScript.