AltCatalog
Catalog Code editors Atom
Discontinued Atom was discontinued in December 2022. The alternatives below are active products you can switch to. All discontinued →

Alternatives to Atom

GitHub's hackable editor

It is licensed under MIT, free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 3 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

GitHub's hackable editor. Atom has been discontinued; the active alternatives listed here are maintained products you can switch to.

Most compared with CursorDevin DesktopEmacs
Official site Suggest an edit Data history Work on Atom? Claim this page
Who it's for

Developers and hobbyist programmers who wanted a free, open-source code editor they could customize down to its core rather than just configure through settings.

What you get

Atom was a general-purpose text and code editor built on Electron, offering syntax highlighting, a fuzzy-find file finder, a built-in package manager, and Git/GitHub integration via panels for diffs, staging, and commits. Its interface and internals were built with web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS/Less), so nearly every part of the editor could be modified. A large community package ecosystem added language support, themes, linters, and other extensions on top of the built-in feature set. GitHub, which developed and maintained Atom, sunset it and archived the project in December 2022 in favor of Visual Studio Code.

How it works

Users installed Atom as a desktop application, opened files or project folders, and edited code in a multi-pane workspace with panes, tabs, and a command palette. They extended it by installing community packages and themes through Atom's built-in package manager, or by writing their own packages and configuration files using JavaScript and CSS/Less.

Why people leave Atom

Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.

Sign in to add a reason — new reasons go through moderation before appearing.

Ranked alternatives

Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.

Sponsored Paid slot. Never affects the ranked order below. Promote here →
01

VS Code fork with AI-first editing.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinux
02

The editor formerly known as Windsurf.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinux
03

The extensible, self-documenting editor.

GPL-3.0 WindowsmacOSLinux
04

Modal terminal editor with built-in LSP, no plugins needed.

MPL-2.0 WindowsmacOSLinux
05

KDE's fast multi-document editor with LSP.

LGPL-2.0-or-later WindowsmacOSLinux
06

Modernized Vim with Lua config and LSP built in.

Apache-2.0 WindowsmacOSLinux
07

Lightweight Windows editor with plugins.

GPL-3.0 Windows
08

Fast native editor with a one-time license.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinux
09

Microsoft's extensible editor, the de-facto default.

MIT WindowsmacOSLinux
10

VS Code builds without Microsoft telemetry.

MIT WindowsmacOSLinux
11
Zed

GPU-accelerated collaborative editor in Rust.

GPL-3.0 macOSLinuxWindows
Sources & verification 7

Every fact and feature listed for Atom is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

FAQ

Yes. Cursor, Devin Desktop and Emacs have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.

Emacs, Helix and Kate — every license claim links its source.