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Every programmer or web developer knows the importance and value of JavaScript. It is one of the popular programming languages which is used for frontend as well as backend. Nowadays, interactive and eye-catching designs are possible with the help of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can create web-based slides, flying robots, digital art projects, server applications, games, and many more. In this article, I am going to share what is JavaScript IDE, the difference between JavaScript code editors and JavaScript IDEs, and the 20 best JavaScript IDEs.

What is an IDE?

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a development environment that is used to edit code, debug, automate, and app development. It is more suitable for small and big businesses to save time and money because most of the features including testing and debugging have already been added. Different IDEs are used to simplify the developers’ tasks and allow many programmers to work on a single project simultaneously. Every good IDE has the following functionalities:

Which is The Best IDE For JavaScript Development?

I don’t think that one can come up with the best IDE for JavaScript, every IDE has its functionalities, pros, and cons. Do you want to write your code on a laptop, or desire to edit your code using the phone? Do you need a lot of packages for big projects and want to customize your development environment? Don’t worry, the market is full of different solutions to fulfill your specific requirement efficiently.

I have decided to discuss 20 IDEs with their advantages and disadvantages, so you can select the right tool whenever you need to develop any application. After reading this article, you will be able to choose the best JS IDE according to your ideal style of coding.

What is The Difference Between JavaScript Source Code Editors and IDEs?

The major difference between JavaScript editors and IDEs is the debugging feature, IDE supports ALM systems, speeds up your development process with the help of different functionalities, and is more suitable for big projects that need a lot of packages to execute. However, most of the code editors are available free of cost, lightweight with the ability to run on laptops or smartphones.  

List of JavaScript IDE & Source Code Editors

Visual Studio

Type: General IDE

Initial Release: February 1997

Official Website: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Visual Studio is a general IDE having advanced functionality with a range of development tasks and an intuitive interface. Visual Studio is primarily used for developing different computer programs for Windows and coming up with screen splitting and different automation tools for ease of use.

It is a leading JavaScript Development IDE with built-in JavaScript support and is also used for C, C++, .NET, C#, etc. Visual Studio is best suitable for beginners as well as professionals with a flexible environment, tools for compatibility testing, and code refactoring features.

Visual JavaScript IDE has many built-in tools with the availability of different plugins to fulfill your specific tasks. It has an excellent debugger that can operate on both the machine level and the source level. Visual Studio 2019 is the latest version that is available for use.

Pros

• Impressive Functionality
• Easy to use with convenient automation tools
• Customization and Quick debugging
• Accurate coding with team collaboration

Cons

• Pricey
• Needs a lot of machine resources to run

Visual Studio Code

Type: Source Code Editor

Initial Release: April 2015

Official Website: https://code.visualstudio.com/

According to a report published by the State of JS, Visual Studio Code is a popular and widely used JS Code Editor. Why it is the first choice of developers? VS code doesn’t consume more power or machine resources and you can easily customize to the setup development environment of more than 30 programming languages including PHP, C#, and Ruby. It is based on the Electron platform and created by Microsoft, but you can also use it on your Linux or macOS.

It is one of the best javascript text editors with Git support, programmers can easily perform pull, push, or commit directly. Moreover, there are hundreds of plugins available to get particular functionality and facilitate developers to run their applications in debug mode with its built-in debugger.

Pros:

• Open-Source cross-platform
• Fast, Lightweight, and powerful
• Built-in debugging, Easy Customization, and extendable with plugins

Cons:

• Lack of advanced IDE features

Webstorm

Type: IDE Dedicated to CSS, HTML, & JavaScript (Commercial)

Initial Release: May 2010

Official Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/

It is an IDE created by JetBrains that supports Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is packed with refactoring, Intelligent code completion, an in-built debugger, and hundreds of other exceptional features with a modern user interface. Webstorm allows developers to keep track of their code changes for review at any time. Spy-js is an excellent feature that distinguishes Webstorm from other competitors, which is used to give suggestions for preventing actions.

It is a paid tool with $59 per year for individual users and $129 per year for companies. However, you can get a 59% discount for non-profit and educational purposes. Webstorm also has a good User Interface, customization features,s and themes to give a comfortable look and feel.

Pros:

• Code refactoring, autocomplete, and good navigation feature
• Built-in tools and support for many plug-ins
• Easiest error reports with great customization

Cons:

• Paid & uses high memory

Atom

Type: Open-Source Code Editor

Initial Release: February 2014

Official Website: https://atom.io/

It is one of the most popular open-source javascript editors launched by GitHub. Atom is the best cross-platform JavaScript IDE with a built-in package manager, multiple panes, smart auto-completion, and highly customizable. It is very easy to install and offers you the functionality to extend the features by installing different packages like Linter, Minimap, and auto-close tags. 

Atom is built with the help of Electron Framework and supports real-time debugging, multiline selection, highlighting, and auto-close HTML tags. There are also pre-installed four UI and eight syntax themes.

Pros:

• Flexible in use with multiple panes
• Built-in Package Manager
• GitHub integration and Smart Auto-completion

Cons:

• Low performance
• Limited functionality and lack of user support

Brackets

Type: Open Source Code Editor

Initial Release:  November 2014

Official Website: http://brackets.io/

Brackets are created by Adobe Systems under an MIT license with outstanding preprocessor support. It is the first choice of creative professionals and JS developers. This open-source JS editor is fast, lightweight, and provides built-in support for JavaScript. Brackets is a cross-platform used for Windows, Linux, and macOS to perform front-end development tasks using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Every web developer can enhance the functionality by installing different extensions including Smart Highlighting, Autoprefixer, and Snippets. Live Preview is a wonderful feature supported by Brackets that allows one to observe the code output by automatically opening a browser.  Brackets has focused on making visual tools and delivering an exceptional feature to change CSS that applies to a specific ID without opening the CSS files.

Pros:

• Lightweight and fast
• Made for web development
• Real-time preview

Cons:

• Lack of advanced IDE functionalities
• Gets slower after the installation of the plugin

Komodo IDE

Type: IDE for Dynamic Languages

Initial Release: May 2000

Official Website: https://www.activestate.com/products/komodo-ide/

Komodo IDE is mainly used for dynamic programming languages including Golang, Perl, PHP, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and many more with the support of Windows, Mac, and Linux Operating Systems. It has many powerful features including syntax highlighting, autocomplete, code refactoring, debugging, and unit testing with a lot of add-ons for extending the features. It can be used as a JavaScript IDE to perform web development tasks using HTML, CSS, and other dynamic languages.

Komodo IDE is free for community and non-profit projects but you have to pay as low as $7 per month for each team member. You can also install a free trial version for 21 days to understand the functionality and features. It is best suitable as a JavaScript IDE and also facilitates a multilingual work environment.

Pros:

• Workflow Management and Extensibility
• Enterprise-grade support with customizable User Interface
• Support Dynamic Programming Languages with multi-user editing

Cons:

• Pricing
• Limited functionality in the free version

Komodo Edit

Type: Text Editor

Initial Release: November 2007

Official Website: https://www.activestate.com/products/komodo-edit/

Komodo Edit is a free and open-source version of Paid Komodo IDE. It lakes many features of its paid version, like Unit Testing, In-Line tools, Custom workspaces, shell scope, code refactoring, Database Explorer, Live preview, dependency detector, version control system integration, Real-time code collaboration, and many others.

Pros:

• Ease of use and Simplicity
• Minimap and track changes
• Autocomplete and call tips, multi-selection, and Kopy.io Integration

Cons:

• Limited functionality

Sublime Text

Type: Code Editor

Initial Release: January 2008

Official Website: https://www.sublimetext.com/

Sublime is an ergonomically convenient multilingual open-source text editor created by Jon Skinner and Will Bond. It has a significant speed boost, advanced pain management, clutter-free interface, Go to symbol, and Go to definition features.

It can be the best Text editor for JavaScript, you can change many lines at once with its multiple selection tool and find your al frequently used tools in a convenient command palette. With the release of its latest version, Sublime is transformed into a pseudo IDE with the support of cross-platform and a high degree of customization.

Pros:

• Multi-cursor and multi-select functionality
• Lightweight and highly customizable
• Efficient development environment with unique features

Cons:

• Absences of advanced functionality

Eclipse

Type: Eclipse JavaScript IDE (Open Source)

Initial Release: November 2001

Official Website: https://www.eclipse.org/ide/

Eclipse JavaScript editor needs to be installed plugins for a specific programming language that you want to use. You can get remarkable performance, robustness, and stability with the Eclipse JavaScript development tools. There are many amazing features are available to increase the efficiency of the JavaScript IDE including automated error reporting that allows the IDE to send found bugs to eclipse.org.

Moreover, you can build Docker images and containers with the help of open-source solutions like Docker CLI and Docker UI. To boost the functionality for testing, modeling, or charting, you can find solutions from the Eclipse Marketplace Client. If you want to reproduce or automate the identical workspaces it is possible by setting up the Oomph Project in this JavaScript IDE. It is one of the best IDEs to run under GNU Classpath.  

Pros:

• Support for Multiple languages
• A wide range of plugins are available
• Fast compiler

Cons:

• Complex for beginners
• Absences of advanced functionality

Light Table

Type: IDE

Initial Release: April 2012

Official Website: http://lighttable.com/

LightTable is an open-source and cross-platform development environment that provides feedback, and code execution and assists the developers in quick abstraction creation. It allows multiple editing on the same code simultaneously. There are different interfaces available including a file tree, command pane, and navigation pane with an exceptional feature of checking the code in real-time, line by line.

It is the best open-source code editor that includes Customizable keymaps and Behavior-Object Tag Engines so that you can easily shape the IDE according to the work requirements.

Pros:

• Open Source Cross-platform
• Used to embed anything
• Lightweight  

Cons:

• Absence of advanced functionality

Codelobster

Type: PHP and JavaScript IDE

Initial Release: September 2016

Official Website: http://codelobsteride.com/

Codelobster is an IDE that is primarily used for PHP development, but it also supports and is equally important for JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It is very popular among web developers and supports several plugins such as WordPress, Yii, JQuery, and Drupal. There are several features including HTML code conversion to ASP, Perl, or PHP functions and vice versa, Macro recording, function parameter displays on hover, and visual style customization.

You can get a free trial of 30 days; if you are interested in getting more functionality then buy a Lite version with limited upgrades or a Professional membership plan to access all the features. Codelobster has ten multilingual interfaces and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

Pros

• PHP debugger
• Class View, SQL manager, and FTP/SFTP support
• Commands for pair, tags, and attribute selections

Cons:

• Pricing

RJ TextEd

Type: Unicode and Source Code Editor

Initial Release: October 2019

Official Website: https://www.rj-texted.se/

RJ TextED provides a universal web development environment and supports ASP, PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript with exciting features including Unicode integration, advanced sorting, smooth autocompletion, and many more. Moreover, RJ TextEd supports SFTP and FTP with the ability to handle both ASCII and binary files efficiently. There are many options available to customize your work environment.

Pros:

• Open-source and Freeware
• Handle ASCII & Binary files

Cons:

• Requires a lot of memory

NetBeans

Type: Dedicated Java IDE

Initial Release: 1997

Official Website: https://netbeans.org/

NetBeans is an open-source IDE that is mostly used for C++, Java, JavaScript, and other programming languages. It comes with the easy feature of a drag-and-drop interface to start every new project from scratch. NetBeans is a cross-platform IDE and more suitable for developing modular software components.

There are many useful features available including a debugger, user settings customization, Visual Library integration, storage monitoring, syntax highlighting, Step-by-step dialog support, and project management tools.

Pros:

• Powerful debugging options
• Open-source and Cross-platform
• Free
• Custom plugins support

Cons:

• Sometimes slows down

CodeLite

Type: JavaScript IDE (also supports C, C++, PHP, and many more)

Version 9.0 Release: 2016

Official Website: https://codelite.org/

It is also an open-source development platform that supports PHP, C, C++, and JavaScript. CodeLite is compatible with Linux, Windows, and macOS. It has many useful functionalities including refactoring and code completion features, syntax highlighting, project management add-ons, and source browsing. CodeLite allows the integration of unit testing, subversion, and scope integration.

Pros:

• Open source
• Rapid code completion based on the in-house parser

Cons:

• Absence of eye-catching UI

AWS Cloud9

Type: Cloud-based JavaScript IDE

Initial Release: 2010

Official Website: https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/

AWS Cloud9 is created using JavaScript and Node.js and provides a built-in terminal, editing simultaneously, variable refactoring, syntax highlighting, and many other useful features. It is the best online javascript editor and also supports other programming languages including PHP, C, C++ Python, Node.js, and Perl.

It is possible to extend the functionality by using different plugins and a variety of themes to set up your desired development environment. You are also able to deploy your applications on different platforms such as Google App Engine, Joyent, or Microsoft Azure using AWS Cloud9.

Pros:

• Run configurations
• Integrated tools for serverless development
• Fully-featured Editor
• File Revision History and Built-in Image Editor

Cons:

• Pricey

Codeanywhere

Type: Cloud IDE (Free/Premium)

Initial Release: May 2013

Official Website: https://codeanywhere.com/

Codeanywhere is also a cloud-based and cross-platform IDE created with the help of JavaScript. Developers can write, edit, and run their projects directly from web browsers, and code in 70+ programming languages. They can also connect their virtual machines via SSH or FT and it also allows them to connect to Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox using Codeanywhere.

Codeanywhere has an in-built terminal for the support of basic Unix commands as well as npm. It is based on CodeMirror and utilizes OpenVZ containers known as DevBoxes for development environments.

Pros:

• Remote connection
• Terminal console
• Platform Agnostic

Cons:

• Pricey

IntelliJ IDEA

Type: Java-Specific IDE (Free/Commercial)

Initial Release: January 2001

Official Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/

It is the favorite IDE for JavaScript developers and also supports many programming languages except Java and JavaScript. IntelliJ IDEA comes up with an amazing feature that automatically adds tools that are most relevant to your context to deliver ease of use. It is also able to automate repetitive programming tasks, smart code assistance, static code analyzer, and integrated Version Control.

Pros:

• Instant and clever code completion with deep intelligence
• Support JVM languages and Enterprise Frameworks
• Built-in decompiler and terminal

Cons:

• Pricey
• Lack of advanced features in the free version

PhpStorm

Type: PHP-Specific IDE for Commercial use only

Initial Release: 2009

Official Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/

It is a closed-source IDE best suitable for frontend projects and developed by JetBrains. Developers can get automated refactoring, zero-configuration debugging, syntax highlighting, on-the-fly, and code analysis. There are also different useful built-in tools for profiling, testing, and other tools to work with databases and SQL projects. Using PhpStorm, you can navigate the code with a smart code navigator and able to work on all major frameworks including Symfony and WordPress.

Pros:

• Fully-functional IDE
• Major Frameworks support
• Customizable

Cons:

• Commercial software

SourceLair

Type: Web-based Online IDE (Trial/Commercial)

Initial Release: January 2011

Official Website: https://www.sourcelair.com/

It is a web-based IDE developed using a framework of Python known as Django. SourceLair allows you to share the project with clients or other team members by sharing the public URL of the project with them. In some special cases when you are working on a project that is using a separate database server then you can simply add it to the project with the help of a few clicks.

Code folding, smart autocompletion, automatic indentation, syntax highlighting and many more are built-in features. SourceLair offers real-time error reporting for JavaScript and comes up with a full-featured Linux terminal and a robust keyboard control layout.

Pros:

• web-based online IDE
• Publicly accessible project URLs
• Customizable

Cons:

• Pricey

Vim

Type: Open-Source Text Editor (Charityware)

Initial Release: 1991

Official Website: https://www.vim.org/

Vim is a favorite of many developers; it is a highly configurable program and specially designed to be used as a standalone application with a GUI as well as directly from the Command Line Interface (CLI).

It has a comprehensive integrated system for help, mouse interaction support, and the ability to edit archived files over FTP, SSH, and HTTP protocols. It also offers a keyboard-based interface, spell-checking, syntax highlights, and undo/redo history.

Pros:

• Excellent performance
• Fast & Lightweight
• Increases productivity

Cons:

• Difficult learning curve