Despite being a competitor to Visual Studio Code, Microsoft has clarified that Atom’s existence and support will continue.Ītom allows for plugins and runs on the same general philosophy of extensibility – like Visual Studio Code. The only major similarities that Atom has with Visual Studio Code is that they’re both built using Electron – a technology that allows developers to build desktop native apps using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.Ītom was created by GitHub before the company was acquired by Microsoft. Like Sublime, Atom is also another text editor with code support. In between using Sublime Text, I also experimented with Atom. In theory, you can pair Sublime Text with a console – but that’s another thing to physically deal with while Visual Studio Code provides a cohesive solution. In contrast, Visual Studio Code can be classed as an integrated development environment (IDE), meaning that developers can write and test code at the same time. The barebones basics of Sublime Text were the original appealing feature, but as the development process increases in complexity, the general needs of a developer are not easily met by Sublime Text. There’s no git integration or an onsite debugging tool like in Visual Studio Code. However, Sublime Text is just a code editor.

Once you’ve figured out the keyboard shortcuts or configured your own, your productivity becomes tied to how quickly you can access certain features. The main reason I stayed with Sublime Text was that it’s easy and quick to write and navigate code. Let’s just say that I haven’t used Sublime Text in a while. However, I eventually laid down my initial prejudices towards Visual Studio Code and gave it a try. In part, I didn’t want to buy into the hype, mostly out of fear that I’d be disappointed. Sublime Text vs Visual Studio Codeįor a long time, I clung to Sublime Text and refused to hop over to Visual Studio Code. So let’s review a few other popular alternatives and how they compare to Visual Studio Code. It’s hard to judge a code editor without context. While this is nice, how does it stack up against the other players in the code editor game? Pros, Cons, and Alternatives With the right settings, extensions, and configured shortcut keys, it can easily become a full-stack workstation. There are productivity, custom debuggers, code linters, ssh-terminals, prettifies, and DevOps pipeline connections.Īlthough the major feature of Visual Studio Code is being a code editor, with the addition of extensions, it becomes more than just a code editor. With the addition of framework, library, and/or language plugin extensions, you can leverage this even further with ready-made boiler-plates.Īnother major thing about the extension marketplace for Visual Studio Code is that it’s not limited to just code. intelliSense is a form of predictive coding. In addition to this, there is intelliSense but built into the code editor. It’s built into the design and your desired workspace set up. You don’t need to have multiple screens to run the different consoles and rearrange them each time you need to minimize something. This makes the process of bug tracking, and code run-throughs a lot easier and faster. Unlike many other code editors, Visual Studio Code has an in-built debugger, making the development flow less ‘clicky’ and maintains a single view with code and debugger. This means that it works on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Visual Studio Code is free, open-source, and cross-platform.

However, there are few distinct features that tip a developer’s preference over towards Visual Studio Code. But why is it so popular? On the surface, it looks just like a typical code editor.

Mac code editor 2015