Pulsar — The Complete Guide: The Community Successor to Atom, a Fully Hackable Code Editor
Pulsar was born after GitHub discontinued Atom. A volunteer community took the code and kept developing it, with the same idea: an editor you can change almost entirely with JavaScript and CSS. It is open source under the MIT licence, free for any use, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Pulsar
Pulsar community (pulsar-edit)
The community continuation of the discontinued Atom editor — a fully hackable code editor with a package manager, LSP and Git.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Built-in package manager — install extensions and themes from inside the editor.
- Language servers — completion and code navigation through LSP packages.
- Git — track changes and commit from inside the editor.
- Split panes and multiple cursors — edit several places at once.
- Snippets and file browser — tidy work within a project.
Who it suits
Former Atom users who want to keep the same environment and many packages from that era, or anyone who likes to build a personal, customised workspace. The editor is built on Electron, so it is relatively heavy, and its package community is much smaller than VS Code’s.
Related tools
For the largest extension library — Visual Studio Code. For that editor without telemetry — VSCodium. For a light, fast editor — Geany.
Visual Studio Code
Microsoft
Free code editor with a huge extension library, built-in terminal, Git and debugger — for Python, scripts, CSV, LaTeX and more.
Get it from the vendor
VSCodium
VSCodium project
The VS Code editor as a fully open build — Python, MATLAB, C, Markdown and more, without telemetry.
Get it from the vendor
Zed
Zed Industries
Very fast open-source code editor with built-in LSP, real-time collaborative editing and optional AI.
Get it from the vendor
Geany
Geany team
A light, fast code editor — scripts, G-code, input files for analysis programs and config files, with syntax highlighting.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
Pulsar keeps Atom alive. For former Atom users it is the natural way forward; newcomers have options with larger communities.