If you want a flexible, powerful, extensible programming text editor that is lightning fast and you don’t mind switching to other windows for code checking, debugging, and deployment, then look no further than Sublime Text.īesides speed, Sublime Text's noteworthy strengths include support for more than 70 file types, among them JavaScript, HTML, and CSS nearly instant navigation and instant project switching multiple selections (make a bunch of changes all at once), including column selections (select a rectangular area of the file) multiple windows (use all your monitors) and split windows (take advantage of your screen real estate) complete customization with simple JSON files a Python-based plugin API and a unified, searchable command palette.įor programmers coming from other editors, Sublime Text supports TextMate bundles (excluding commands) and Vi/Vim emulation. While TextMate ranked high on my list a few years ago, its capabilities haven't really kept pace with new developments. Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code are tops among JavaScript editors-Sublime Text for its speed as much as its convenient editing features, and Visual Studio Code for even better features and speed that is almost as good.

Many of the editors discussed here support at least one version control system, often Git, so that criterion is less of a differentiator between IDEs and editors than it used to be. The essential difference between editors and IDEs is that IDEs can debug and sometimes profile your code, and they have support for application lifecycle management (ALM) systems. Why use an editor for JavaScript programming instead of an IDE? In a word: speed.

In this article, I discuss 10 text editors with good support for developing with JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS, and for documenting with Markdown.

JavaScript programmers have many good tools to choose from-almost too many to keep track of.

Best code editor with live preview