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Atom
Powerful Text Editor
4.4
(765)
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Atom Reviews & Product Details

Atom Overview
What is Atom?

Atom is an open-source text editor used by software developers. The platform is free and features tools that allow cross-platform editing, code autocomplete and Git integration. With Atom, developers can streamline workflows while ensuring better collaboration with team members with the goal of creating high-quality software.

Company GitHub, Inc.
Year founded 2008
Company size 501-1000 employees
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States
Social Media
Ask Questions about Atom
What Atom is best for?
How does Atom compare to Lightkey?
What are the pros and cons of Atom?
Atom Product Details
Capabilities
API
CLI
OSS
Segment
Small Business
Mid Market
Enterprise
Deployment Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Desktop Linux, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows
Training Documentation
Languages English
Atom Features
Auto-completion
Bracket Matching
Built-in Terminal
Cloud Sync
Code Folding
Code Formatting
Code Snippets
Customizable Themes
Diff Tool
Drag and Drop Editing
Error Checking
File Explorer
Hex Editor
Keyboard Shortcuts
Line Numbering
Linter Integration
Live Preview
Macros
Markdown Support
Minimap
Multi-Cursor Editing
Multiple Language Support
Plugin/Extension Support
Regular Expression Support
Search and Replace
Spell Check
Split View
Syntax Highlighting
Text Wrapping
Version Control Integration
Atom Media
Atom 0
Atom 1
Atom 2
Atom Screenshots
Disclaimer
Our research is curated from diverse authoritative sources and meant to offer general advice. We don’t guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each use-case, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services. Feel free to share your feedback.
Last updated: November 22, 2024
Atom Logo
765 Atom Reviews
4.4 out of 5
Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Jan 24, 2017
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
BC
Brittany C.
Developer
Share
"Great, but could use a performance boost"
What do you like best about Atom?

Atom is a great text editor, almost on par with Sublime. It has great plugins and is very customizable

What do you dislike about Atom?

It is very slow compared to sublime. I'm sure with future releases performance will improve.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Coding for work and for my personal use. Plugins are great for increasing productivity.

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
Jan 12, 2017
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
MR
Michael R.
Senior Software Engineer
Share
"Punchy, Dynamic editor"
What do you like best about Atom?

It's clean and intuitive. The fact that it's Open Source (Free) is arguably its strongest point. Very hackable, in a good way. The community continues to build quality extensions which make it more and more powerful.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Historically it has suffered from input lag. Those micro delays can be very distracting. However I can't attest to the current quality as I haven't used it as a primary editor for a little over a year.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Recently I had to do some editing on a new machine. I immediately went to Atom as I trusted it would be a fast installation that would get me writing faster than having to dig up and fuss with my Sublime Text 3 key.

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Jul 26, 2016
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
LY
Lokendra Y.
Testing Engineer
Share
"Modern text editor with lots of plugins "
What do you like best about Atom?

I really like ATOM because of its sleek Graphical User Interface which provides various color schemes and has in-built themes for providing best customization for syntax and GUI. It provides me the capability to choose my own fonts & their size along with different colors as syntax highlighter. It comes with lots of plugins to provide extended support for the editor and the product is designed by GitHub which itself has a very good market value, so I trust it pretty well. Moreover, it is free to use and is best suited for all major programming languages.

What do you dislike about Atom?

It has a major drawback when it comes to performance with large files and completion of code. It freezes when large files are opened in the editor and sometimes crashes as well. The windows remains unresponsive that time and I have to wait for it to load the complete file.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

The most useful benefit I realized was the cross platform support from ATOM. In my organization, I used to work on Windows machine whereas our Client uses Linux as their Operating System. So, ATOM provided the support for both of us and synchronization is now great between client and organization. Now I use it for creating JavaScript files and auto completion of various syntax.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Feb 01, 2016
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
João F. avatar
João F.
Head Software Engineer
Share
"There is a great room for improvement but this is the text editor to use for the next few years"
What do you like best about Atom?

The amazing open-source community, and how that transfers to the various plugins available.

What do you dislike about Atom?

It is very slow when compared to Sublime Text, specially the multi-text selection. There are also some known bugs.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

I'm mainly a programmer and this is the perfect tool. One huge benefit are the language-specific plugins.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Dec 17, 2015
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
JV
José M V.
Fullstack Developer
Share
"Best code editor for web development"
What do you like best about Atom?

This new editor is really focused on the needs of a web developer. Although it works extremely well with general programing languages where different technologies come out to shine. (Git, some js frameworks and HTML5 APIs). It has a beautiful UI developed with the new technologies of the current market (Electron, Vanilla JS and NodeJS) make this code editor the best suited for fast prototyping and general coding. Thousand of plugins and several customization options give you the ability to adapt Atom so it fits your needs, you'll be able to reduce your production times and cost, Atom is open source, therefor it's free. It has a very sleek GUI, it brings some color schemes and different syntax highlighting colors, you can change everything, fonts, font sizes, anything can be change so you can archieve your desired development enviroment.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Atom being a new thing, since its very first version, has been sort of slow compared to another competitors, in some cases it seems like all these new technologies implemented in the software aren't yet optimized for these kind of implementations and can get bugged up pretty easily. It has been coded from scratch, so it still lacks of some compatibilities with the market's OS and frameworks.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Front-End development in general alongside git (Github) repositories usage, which is awesome.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Dec 16, 2015
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
Eduardo S. avatar
Eduardo S.
Cto
Share
"A very good text editor but a bit lacklustre in performance"
What do you like best about Atom?

From the graphic text editors I have used in the past years (TextMate, Sublime), this is definitely the best one. It is very customizable and it is definitely a different approach in building software. If they get the speed part better I might try it again in the future.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Performance, I find it slower then vim which is what I have used for the past years, but of course that is understandable.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Developing software, it is a very good multi-platform open source editor.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Dec 15, 2015
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
Abhas B. avatar
Abhas B.
Trainee Decision Scientist
Share
"A modern replacement for sublime text, but not so performant"
What do you like best about Atom?

1. Built on web technologies like html5, js,css - so gets all the tooling benefit that comes with it, like chrome debugger, testing , linting, auto-formating frameworks 2. Plugins can be written easily as they are written in javascript. So, the tap-able plugin author base is much larger and we can already see that effect - it has lots of plugins, probably as much as the old king Sublime Text (which is still my main editor, actually) 3. It has a rapid development cycle and has all the special editing functionality that only Sublime Text used to have. So, earlier Sublime used to be the king, but its development pace has been stalled for the last few years. Even though I swear by Sublime, I am confident Atom will catch upto it and then become much better due to its active devs. All of this is open-source, for the icing.

What do you dislike about Atom?

1. Performance is sluggish and doesnt feel as responsive as native editors like Sublime Text. It used to be horribly slow, but in the last year the situation has improved drastically and now its more than usable. But it is nothing near the fast startup of Sublime or the native responsiveness. Again, those thing might get resolved in the future, but it will still never be as impressive as Sublime Text (ST). 2. API for plugins are still not as mature and easy to use like others, a lot of boilerplate is needed to start making one.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Problem - Using it for writing javascript modules and editing some stylesheets. Benefits - The process was very streamlined due to some plugins which: 1. Refreshed the browser page on editing and saving the css 2. Automatically checked for syntax error and code smells as I typed and showed hints 3. Autocomplete for variable, function names alongwith type information

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Dec 12, 2015
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.5
Mihai G. avatar
Mihai G.
Change And Release Manager Domains Development
Share
"Small but pushed behind by big guys"
What do you like best about Atom?

I have to admit that there are some things that I like about ATOM like the fact it is free and also open source on all platforms, it has a good integration with Git and GitHub. You can rely on a well-documented open API for plugin developers, a good selection of themes and plugins with a built-in package manager and sublime text and vim-compatible shortcuts. Also it is immediately usable with less reliance on configuration files, and has an attractive interface. Atom is reasonably easy to install on Mac and has a built-in updater. I have to mention in here also that it is really easy to use, if you're coming from Sublime Text, it has the Command Palette, also Developer Tools (a big plus from my side). It has an easy to customise UI and maybe one of the most important things a lot of support from Github crew (You can see these guys pushing to Atom repo's all day long)

What do you dislike about Atom?

Windows and Linux install versions are a little behind with the latter requiring source build instructions. It is slow (Sublime Text 3 is insanely fast), it cannot handle files bigger than a couple of MB's

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Day to day work, and sometimes side projects for myself.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Apr 11, 2023
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
DM
Darshan M.
Manager (Gis&Ne)
Share
"Good editor with tons of language support"
What do you like best about Atom?

Almost all language support which are needed

What do you dislike about Atom?

Need to work on auto suggestion part and gui

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Script writing without utilisation of IDE concorrent licence

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Mar 12, 2021
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
Rahul A. avatar
Rahul A.
Frontend Engineer
Share
"Once the best; now catching dust!"
What do you like best about Atom?

## UI This is a well understood but underrated aspect. One Dark is an amazingly useful and beautifully crafted syntax theme. It's a relief to find it even on VS Code! I am a huge fan of the three column layout. I've tried unsuccessfully to recreate this in other text editors. The three columns are Files, Code Editor and Git. Piling up files on the Git tab and checking them often to introspect changes is a very effective workflow. Now this is very possible in VS Code as well, but at the expense of your file explorer. For an Atom aficionado the only sane way to use VS Code is to move the side bar to the right side. Keep it in Git + Gitlens view most of the time and come to peace with the fact that you can't see your file explorer with zero effort :( ## Hackable This clearly still is the selling point for Atom. Why else would atom.io still say "A hackable text editor for the 21st century". Most people really don't wanna be hacking around their text editor though. Installing extensions to make it work is enough "hacking around" for most. I have really enjoyed this though. I really liked my entire text editor, including the extensions and file explorer using "Dank Mono". But it is possible because Atom is hackable enough to make it tremor every time you type a letter. Or have it play a musical note on key press! (Both these extensions exist!) I really like how much Atom becomes the user's once its installed on their computer. Most other text editors, including VS Code, still ocks you out from extensively customising it. ## Integrations - GitHub This was another selling point for Atom. Right next to the Git tab is the GItHub tab. You can directly raise a Pull Request from there. Find issues -> Create branches and much more. I am of the opinion that Atom is a better GitHub client than the GitHub desktop app! Another thing I used to use is how when you're working on a branch with a PR raised for review, all your lines with comments are highlighted with the comment.

What do you dislike about Atom?

## Extensions and Themes This is a where Atom has fallen behind. Extensions and themes are nowhere close to what we have on VS Code. Besides, the complete hackable nature is a double edged sword. When you have the power to mess up your editor to the point where it's not usable anymore. Even an extension can have inefficient code that slows down not just the editor, but your entire computer! ## Outdated? Not really. Most packages are somehow still updated! But some newer packages never make their way into Atom. And how GitHub and Facebook gave up on Nuclide the project to make Atom as good as an IDE was a shame. It is still very much possible to use Atom as your only text editor in 2021. But you'll be unfortunately missing out on some cool extensions!

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Atom will forever be remembered for the revolution it brought about. Rendering an HTML page inside a native app wrapper was nothing to be proud of. Then came Atom, a cross platform app built on web technologies that really rivalled prominent players of that time that included the giants like Sublime and Brackets. For a long while, every tech influencer used this marvellous piece of engineering excellence from GitHub. Every tutorial on the internet from that time period started with an `atom .`! I remember back in 2016 when Atom was the best thing out there! I vehemently used Sublime Text back then. I complained how buggy and slow Atom worked on my Ubuntu. In two years time, I switched to VS Code. It worked like magic on both my Ubuntu and Windows 10. Around 2018, I switched to a Mac finally, and on a better screen, I started to realise how beautiful a UX GitHub had crafted in the form of this text editor!

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Sep 20, 2019
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
VA
Victoria A.
Systems Engineer
Share
"Excels in team collaboration"
What do you like best about Atom?

I like how there is a Github tab from which I can perform literally all the operations I would perform in my GitHub account in the browser. I can create a new branch from within atom and even open pull requests. The process of fetching new changes from the team's common repository is also simplified. By the way, all of these can be done through the mere click of a button rather than writing commands in a terminal. As a matter of fact this is quite helpful because sometimes I always end up forgetting the right command for what I want to do but with atom, the process is simplified.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Atom is notorious for its high computer memory usage. Compared to other text editors, atom stands out as a very unresourceful software to have installed on your computer. Because of its liberal usage of RAM, atom takes a longer time to startup and sometimes stays with a blank screen until it is restarted. And now when you add plugins to the editor, it slows down to an even higher rate making it a very unsuitable software to work with. This means that if you intend to extend Atom's functionality, you will have sacrifice responsiveness.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use Atom for lightweight development work that do not require over-reliance on libraries or which I know will not end up having a large number of files after completion

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Sep 14, 2019
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
LG
Linda G.
Senior Backend Developer
Share
"Atom is over-hyped and over-sold on its potential"
What do you like best about Atom?

Where atom stands out is its focus on file version control by giving not just git (which is a common feature in most text editors and IDEs) but also github a lot of significance. The internal integration with github is almost flawless and as long as you're logged into your account it becomes fairly easy to do a lot of things from right within atom as you would do on the github website. Atom also makes it easy to access your packages because the packages' tab is in an openposition meaning

What do you dislike about Atom?

Atom is seriously heavy, actually I have come to realize that it used more resources than a fully packed IDE such as Phpstorm. Your computer is going to be left hanging and half the time you'll be resolving computer freeze issues rather than writing code. WHat's more annoying is that atom does not posses as many features for it to be that heavy.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use atom for developing our website and applications because despite its huge shortfalls, it excels when it comes to web development.

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Sep 06, 2019
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
EW
Elias W.
Ui Designer
Share
"Atom brings a new definition to writing code and version controlling it."
What do you like best about Atom?

The atom development team (which comprises part of the Githyb team) have made it a personal mission that controlling file versions using git is a key part of the software development cycle by ensuring that the Git and Github panels are merely a click a way. In addition, unlike other text editors and IDEs which integrate Git but in terminal, Atom ensures that there are two panels each specifically dedicated for Git and Github which means even remote repositories can be accessed from within the editor.

What do you dislike about Atom?

For an editor that has established and experienced professionals in its core development team, you would hope that Atom does better at computer resources' usage. Unfortunately, Atom tends to lag even when it is running very light work and a lot of times it takes longer to start up than its competitors such as sublime text.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

We have an unwritten policy that we use lighter editors for work that does not require integration with a lot of third party tools, frameworks and libraries. This is where atom comes in handy. I use it whenever I'm working on projects that mostly involve the vanilla versions of a language and sometimes light usage of a framework

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Jul 20, 2019
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
RK
Ryan K.
Group Ceo
Share
"Amazing for Free"
What do you like best about Atom?

The thing that I like most about this app is that it's friendly to platforms like MAC because I've been looking for the software that suits the Mac. It's also a excellent customization app, and it's also simple to add packages. It also guarantees that consumers get what they need from the software and what they expect

What do you dislike about Atom?

As I stated, it offers packages, but finding the ones you need is not very simple, and if you fortunately discover one, it turns out that someone else is already taking it. So, finding the packages you need is a challenge. In addition, if you have any problems, finding the platform to assist and fix the problem is difficult.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

It once improves the user's productivity after becoming accustomed to it, so learning this software is worth it. The most helpful thing about it is the range of packages and ftps to link to. It can also be remotely used. This benefit helps make the coding run smoothly between the software and the autofill function, which is really a good thing about it.

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Mar 18, 2019
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
CG
Chechu G.
Perfect Simpleness
Share
"Editor de código fuente y texto gratuito y de código abierto."
What do you like best about Atom?

Instalar nuevas características, temas y paquetes es súper fácil: es agradable ver una colaboración basada en la comunidad en ese frente. Puede usar el paquete de acuerdo con sus requerimientos en el desarrollo, es completamente gratuito, por lo que no debe preocuparse por los precios

What do you dislike about Atom?

Por no mencionar, si encuentra uno bueno, está desarrollado por otra persona y si tiene problemas, a veces es difícil encontrar el foro adecuado para encontrar una solución. La configuración puede demorar unos minutos. Lo único que no me gusta este software es que requiere una alta memoria RAM y no es adecuado para grandes proyectos.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Durante mucho tiempo trabajando con diferentes IDE siempre tuvimos problemas de estabilidad porque son aplicaciones muy pesadas y complicadas que siempre dan algún problema, gracias a Atom podemos hacer el mismo trabajo en un entorno simple y estable. Estoy resolviendo el problema de la programación más sencilla. Flujo de trabajo con colores más oscuros y un diseño fácil de usar. Atom es rápido y fácil de configurar con nuestros paquetes internos para facilitar el desarrollo de los nuevos miembros del equipo.

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Jul 27, 2018
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
JH
Joshua H.
Senior Consultant/Developer
Share
"A great editor with lots of flexibility"
What do you like best about Atom?

Code suggestions make it easy to get work done fast. All the plugins mean if I need to have code suggestions or linters for php, CMS framework or any other instance, I can add that functionality easily.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Adding/Removing and enabling/disabling plugins is a little bit obscured at first, but after doing it a few times you get the hang of it.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

Writing javascript, php, CSS

Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
Mar 29, 2018
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
AH
Andrew H.
Senior Software Engineer
Share
"Highly flexible and customizable but slow"
What do you like best about Atom?

Atom has a large community of plugins, add-ons, and themes. It's also free and open-source.

What do you dislike about Atom?

At the time of this writing, the performance of Atom is really bad. Its underlying technology is slow and uses a lot of memory. On my Macbook Pro, the performance was so bad that I decided to stop using it in favor of a more performant editor.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

A free code editor, with good syntax highlighting and support for EditorConfig and various code linting add-ons.

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
Jul 15, 2015
 Source
Overall Rating:
3.0
Sergio R. avatar
Sergio R.
Software Development Engineer
Share
"ATOM needs some improvement"
What do you like best about Atom?

It's Open Source and you can contribute to the code if you can/want to make it better. It's developed by Github and there's a public Github repository where you can submit pull requests. It's based on the latest version of Chromium, so it's pretty much cross-platform. People actively contributing to the project and adding more and more packages. UI is customizable using Less. This is useful if you like to customize your stuff or improve existing themes.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Sessions are not saved by default in Atom core, there's a package that does the job for now (https://github.com/mpeterson2/save-session). Sublime does it by default. Needs some performance improvements, sometimes it gets unresponsive after opening a bunch of files at once. UI needs some improvement and refinement in my opinion.

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

I'm using Atom as editor only, I'm not using it as IDE, as an editor is great overall but it needs some improvement, given that it's becoming popular very fast I'm sure it's going to get better and better and will become a serious competitor for Sublime.

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Apr 18, 2022
 Source
Overall Rating:
2.5
DG
Dip G.
Software Engineer
Share
"Not that much handy"
What do you like best about Atom?

Split editor, codes color combinations.

What do you dislike about Atom?

Version control, backend language helps

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

For developing with js it kind of best software

Mid Market (51-1000 emp.)
Feb 28, 2022
 Source
Overall Rating:
2.5
Prajyoti M. avatar
Prajyoti M.
Software Analyst
Share
"Free and open-source text and source code editor for macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows"
What do you like best about Atom?

Free open source and support plugins and embedded git control

What do you dislike about Atom?

user interface is not good difficult to use

What problems is Atom solving and how is that benefiting you?

git code commit.Atom is a highly customizable text editor