To increase your productivity when coding Javascript, I brought this selection of IDEs that will help you a lot!

JS is the most popular language for web development. It integrates well with CSS and HTML, which together can make incredible applications. A language as popular as this must have a lot of IDEs and editor available, right?

But this high numbers of tools can be confusing for new developers. There are many options and functionalities. So, to help you choose the best one, check out this article and find the best Javascript IDE for you.

What is an IDE?

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a software that allows you to code with many extra features instead of just typing lines of code. With IDEs, you can edit, modify, debug, execute and test your code.

IDEs come with many extra features, like automatic text completion, that increases your coding speed and productivity. In this article, I curated a list of the best 4 free IDEs, all of which are in the top 10 most used IDEs according to a GitHub research.

Differences between IDEs and code editors

Using an IDE is preferred over code editors because of the IDE’s ability to debug the code. Furthermore, IDEs have support for ALM systems (Application Lifecycle Management).

In short, an IDE can provide the following benefits:

• A code editor (that shows you syntax errors while typing)

• Debugger (to find errors in the code)

• Compiler and interpreter

• Automatic compilation (creating script to automate many tasks, like documentation for example)

• Syntax highlighting

• Quick access to class or function definition

• Shortcuts to execute commands

• Easy-to-use user interface

• Many code libraries

• Automatic code completion

• Support to different programming languages

• Cloud development

• Mobile development

However, today the difference between source code editors and IDEs is blurred, since there are code editors that have slowly started to offer similar functionality to the IDEs.

How to choose a Javascript IDE

To make a good choice, you need to be clear about what is important to you and to the project you will be working on.

Do you code alone or in larger teams? What types of functionality are on your most relevant list? Do you prefer an open source IDE or not?

We have already talked about the pros of using an IDE, but what about the cons? Are there any? Yes. Basically, because they are complex and heavy software, they demand a lot from the hardware (they need a lot of memory both to be installed and to run).

So depending on your working conditions it might be better to use a code editor, which are usually lighter (and free) programs.

The IDE should save you time so that you can study more and become more creative.

The following lists of pros and cons of the IDEs were compiled based on the opinions of some novice and experienced developers, as well as the specifications described by the maintainers of each software.

Many of their functionalities are the same, especially the basic ones such as syntax highlighting, debugging, extension by plugins, refactoring, etc. The question here will be the quality vs. usability that each offers.

Visual Studio Code

• Company: Microsoft

• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac

• **Open source: **Yes

• Languages*:* more than 30 languages, like Java, JavaScript, C#, C++, PHP, SQL, R, Python, TypeScript, JSON, XML etc.

Pros:

• ASP.NET 5 and Node.js, plus great WSL integration

• Good debugger

• Support for a terminal inside the window

• Syntax highlighting

• Works directly with Github

• Good auto-completion (IntelliSense)

• Comes practically zeroed when downloaded, which makes it lightweight!

Cons:

• Minimalist, may not be suitable for very large projects

• To support a language not supported natively, you have to look for extensions in the store and configure them manually

• Debugging tools could be better

• Interface can scare beginners.

*Download VS Code*

Eclipse

• Company: IBM/Eclipse Foundation

• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris

• Open source: Yes

• Languages: initially it was built for Java only, but today it works well with JavaScript, C, C++, PHP, Python, Kotlin, and more.

Pros:

• Great project management (Application Lifecycle Management)

• Almost all packages support Git integration

• Editable syntax highlighting

• High-level debugging

• Good auto-completion

• Programming in several languages like Java, JavaScript, PHP, C, C++, C#, Ruby, Phyton, Haskel, Cobol, and many others

• Flexible environment because it is modular

• Ability to integrate JUnit

• Remote debugging (when using JVM)

Cons:

• Some beginners may be scared by the amount of possibilities

• Some plugins will not always work very well, so choose the most well established ones in the community

• Many of the changes need a reboot to work

*Download Eclipse*

Atom

• Company: Github

• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac

• Open source: Yes

• Languages: JavaScript

Pros:

• Highly integrated with Github

• Great for large, complex projects

• Automatic error search

• Easy to install new plugins

• Permanent display of all project files

• Fast code window splitting

• Has more than 2000 packages and 600 themes for customization (the search can be done inside the IDE)

• Good auto-completion

• Accepts collaborative work on a project’s files

Cons:

• It takes some time getting your plugins and configuration sorted

• It’s a browser-based app (runs on Electron), and is a bit slow to load and sometimes to respond

*Download Atom*

NetBeans

• Company: Oracle

• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Solaris

• Open source: Yes

• Languages: initially built for Java only, but today it works well with JavaScript, PHP, Python, HTML5, CSS3 and more.

Pros:

• Syntax highlighting

• Optimal refactoring

• Automatic error search

• Intuitive interface (drag and drop function)

• Dynamic and static libraries

• Remote development capability

• Supports multiple compilers, including CLang / LLVM, Cygwin, GNU, MinGW and Oracle Solaris Studio

• Integrated issue tracking with Jira and Bugzilla

• Ability to search for tasks, save searches, update and resolve tasks in its log repository

Cons:

• Needs a lot of memory, so can get slow on some machines or large projects

• Annoying pop-ups

*Download Netbeans*

Conclusion

That’s it for today. Now we know some of the most popular IDEs for Javascript! I hope this article helped you start your journey with programming.

Thanks for reading! Follow me in this platform to read more developer content. Have a great day, see you soon! 👋