Interested in learning about which is the best code editor 2020? Then read on because here you will find the most promising syntax for coders of the future. It’s hard to believe that it is 2021lready, and that soon everyone is going to be using some kind of graphical interface for programming. We call these graphical tools “code editors”; each year new ones are born and others die off. But which editor should you use in 2021?
Hands down, the best and most popular code editors right now include Sublime Text, Atom and Notepad++. Different developers will have different preferences about what code editor they want to use and you will find the most personalities of the three on Atom. If you go to their official forums, you will get an idea of how passionate the developers using it are.
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 is an open-source code editor software developed by Microsoft. Of the code editors in this list, it’s probably the closest to being an IDE. You may find the program slow to start. Yet, given its robust features, Visual Studio Code has quickly risen in popularity as one of the best code editors among developers.
Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Developer: Microsoft
Features:
- Built-in Git support
- In-editor debugging
- Large library of extensions and plugins
- IntelliSense (intelligent code completion)
- Very robust
Sublime Text 3
Sublime Text really changed the way the best code editors work. It’s lightweight, open and ready to edit your file almost as soon as you’ve managed to click the button. This responsiveness is one of the things that makes it the best code editor in its class overall. If you want to open a file and make a quick edit, waiting a few seconds for loading may not sound like much, but the delay can quickly grow tedious.
Another big benefit of Sublime Text is that it’s wildly extensible, with a huge and ever-growing list of plugins available to install via the package manager. Options include themes to customise the editor’s appearance, code linters (which can assist with more quickly locating any errors in your code), Git plugins, colour pickers, and more.
Sublime Text is free to download and start using, but for extended use you’ll need to shell out $80 for a licence – and the programme will remind you fairly regularly about payment until you cough up. If you decide to pay, you can use the same licence key for any computer you use, so you can enter the same code on all your machines to get rid of the payment reminder popup. The paid licence, however, is perhaps Sublime Text’s biggest downside since there are a number of competitive products available at no cost.
Atom
One of the most famous and useful code editors on this list is Atom. Used by millions of developers all over the world, it is an amazing application with a very simple UI that increases its usability.
One of the cool features of this best free code editor is that the developers can submit packages straight from the application. Atom is available for download at multiple platforms: Windows, Linux, and Mac devices. If you are a Mac OSX user, this is the perfect time for you to give this app a shot.
Key Features
- Package Manager Integrated for Plugins support
- Supports Command Palette
- The feature of smart autocompletion
- Cross-platform editing
- Built-in package manager
- File system browser
- Find and replace tool
- Smart autocompletion
- Multiple panes
- Packages and themes
Pricing
- Free
Vim
Vim is an advanced text editor open-source tool which is also considered to be an IDE in its way. The program is navigated entirely via the keyboard, making it much faster and more efficient — but only if you make an effort to learn how to operate it. There is no question that VIM is the most challenging code editor to learn on this list. Yet, it can really increase your productivity. Advanced developers love it because of how customizable and lightweight it is and because there’s no need to touch the mouse for the most part.
Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Developer: Vim.org
Features:
- Extensive plugin system
- Good for keyboarders
- Custom commands
- Support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
- Rock-solid and very fast
Codespaces
Github’s owner, Microsoft, made it clear that its vision for the 2020s is all about the cloud, and here’s a good example. Launched in May 2020, Codespaces is a browser-based code editor based on Visual Studio Code. It has support for Git repos, extensions and a built-in command line interface so you can edit, run, and debug your applications from any device. Obviously this enables you to work from anywhere, and makes collaboration with other devs easier.
Code-editing functionality in GitHub will always be free, although Microsoft plans to offer simple pay-as-you-go pricing for Codespaces cloud environments. You launch Codespaces straight from Github, which makes for a nice bit of synergy. If you prefer not to use a browser, that’s fine too, as support for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio is built in.
Brackets
Although this list recommends some of the best code editors in the market, there is still no comparison to Brackets code editor. Yes, it is free, but what makes it really useful is the full barrage of extensive new features.
This application has a lightweight framework designed by the people over at Adobe. Believe me, those people know what they are doing. It is one of the best code editors that is completely open-source and you can modify it to your liking.
One of the most amazing features of this application is that you can choose between a browser view to look at how your code is doing or you can view the source code in its original form and modify it from there.
This application is available to be used on Windows, Linux, and Mac devices.
Key Features
- Offers live preview, pre-processor support, and inline editors
- Especially developed tool for macOS
- Quick Edit UI feature puts context-specific code and tools inline
- Pleasant looking UI
- It comes with the inbuilt extension manager for fast & effective extension management
- Quick Docs
- JSLint
- Live Preview
- LESS support
Pricing
- Free
Conclusion:
Look, there’s a lot to learn in this world. And quite frankly, it can all get pretty intimidating. Who has time for it? Not us, that’s who. We’ve got places to go and innovations to test and data to collect and run-on sentences to write.
Whether you are a web developer, coder, or simply someone who needs to upload code online, the code editors are some of the most important pieces you will ever use.