Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Eclipse Theia VS Pulsar Editor

Compare Eclipse Theia VS Pulsar Editor and see what are their differences

Eclipse Theia logo Eclipse Theia

Extensible cloud & desktop platform for building multi-language IDEs with web technology.

Pulsar Editor logo Pulsar Editor

A Community-led Hyper-Hackable Text Editor, built on Electron. and based on everything we love about our favorite editors.
  • Eclipse Theia Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09
  • Pulsar Editor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-05

Eclipse Theia features and specs

  • Open Source
    Eclipse Theia is open source under the Eclipse Public License, allowing for community contributions and use without licensing costs.
  • Extensibility
    The architecture is designed to be flexible, enabling developers to extend and customize the IDE through a modular extension system.
  • Compatibility with VS Code Extensions
    Theia can run most Visual Studio Code extensions, providing users with access to a large ecosystem of plugins and tools.
  • Multi-Language Support
    Supports multiple programming languages, offering syntax highlighting, language-specific features, and enhanced development experience across languages.
  • Cloud and Desktop Deployment
    Can be deployed as a cloud IDE or as a desktop application, providing flexibility in how it's used and integrated into workflows.

Possible disadvantages of Eclipse Theia

  • Performance Overheads
    Due to its architecture, Theia may exhibit higher resource utilization and slower performance compared to some native IDEs.
  • Complexity in Customization
    While highly customizable, the process of extending and configuring Theia can be complex, requiring technical knowledge and development effort.
  • Immaturity
    As a relatively new project compared to other established IDEs, Theia may lack some stability and features that users expect based on mature alternatives.
  • Dependency on VS Code
    Since Theia aims to be compatible with VS Code extensions, it might rely on updates and changes made in the VS Code ecosystem.

Pulsar Editor features and specs

  • Open Source
    Pulsar Editor is open source, allowing developers to contribute, modify, and customize the editor according to their needs.
  • Extensible
    The editor supports a wide range of plugins and packages, enabling users to extend its functionality to suit various development workflows.
  • Cross-Platform
    Pulsar Editor runs on major operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing a consistent experience across different platforms.
  • Community Support
    Pulsar Editor has a growing community that can help with troubleshooting, plugins, and development advice.
  • Familiar Interface
    It offers an interface that is intuitive for users familiar with Atom, making it easy to transition for existing Atom users.

Possible disadvantages of Pulsar Editor

  • Performance Issues
    As an Atom fork, it may still inherit potential performance issues, particularly when handling very large files or projects.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more established editors like VS Code, the ecosystem for extensions and plugins might be smaller.
  • Early Development
    Being a relatively new project, it may have fewer features and a less mature development environment.
  • Fewer Integrations
    May offer fewer integrations with third-party tools and services compared to more widely used editors.
  • Resource Heavy
    It may consume more system resources than some lightweight editors, which can be a concern for users with limited resources.

Eclipse Theia videos

Eclipse Theia 1.0 -- Visual Studio Code Competitor?

More videos:

  • Review - The Eclipse Theia Architecture - Thomas Mรคder
  • Review - Eclipse Theia vs Che vs VS Code

Pulsar Editor videos

No Pulsar Editor videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Eclipse Theia and Pulsar Editor)
Text Editors
56 56%
44% 44
IDE
52 52%
48% 48
Software Development
49 49%
51% 51
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Eclipse Theia should be more popular than Pulsar Editor. It has been mentiond 36 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Eclipse Theia mentions (36)

  • Disabling telemetry in ByteDance's VSCode fork increases data sent to its server
    There's also the Eclipse VScode-look-alike-reimplementation called TheiaIDE https://theia-ide.org/ It was rough a few years ago, but nowadays it's pretty nice. TI rebuilt their Code Composer Studio using Theia so it does have some larger users. It's VSCode-with-an-Eclipse-feel to it - which might or might not be your cup of tea, but it's an alternative. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
    100% this. It would be one thing if the only LSPs you could build came from Microsoft, but thatโ€™s just not true. Itโ€™s just that developing LSPs isnโ€™t free. Cursor, Windsurf, etc. Are building multi-billion dollar businesses off the backs of the work that the VS Code team has done. And thatโ€™s totally fine! Whatโ€™s not fine, is trying to have access to the whole ecosystem of first party extensions that arenโ€™t MIT... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks
    Even better: Theia. It supports most vscode extensions right out of the box. https://theia-ide.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Important open source projects should not use GitHub (2020)
    Big corporations are not monoliths, despite them having an overall singular personality. I believe that vscode was a sincere attempt, at least in the beginning. While based on electron which was originally developed for Atom, vscode was always much more performant than atom. But when it did gain a lot of developer attention, MS's true nature took hold and gradually converted it into the walled garden we see today.... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Visual Studio Code is designed to fracture
    MS is a bit weird. After realizing that most competent developers had left the MS ecosystem, they went for a Zeitenwende. But they did only for 90%. I wonder to what extent this halfheartedness should be ascribed to the MS org chart or to reasoning like "we should prevent a competent competitor to run away with our tools". In the mean time, there is a capable replacement named Theia [0] with none of the... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
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Pulsar Editor mentions (10)

  • I still like Sublime Text in 2025
    Nobody mentionned Pulsar (https://pulsar-edit.dev/) which is the community maintained Atom since its sunsetting (Dec 2022). Atom was created by Nathan Sobo, who is now working on Zed (https://zed.dev/). - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Zed on Linux Is Here
    The Atom editor is being maintained as a fork: Pulsar https://pulsar-edit.dev Zed is co-founded by one (or more?) original developer of Atom. So, it's a successor in a sense that it is a new project by the same author. Atom was developed at GitHub, and GitHub Inc remains the owner of the original Atom project. From their perspective the successor of Atom is VSCode - developed by their parent company, - despite the... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Show HN: Open-source alternatives to tools You pay for
    You may be thinking of Pulsar ()? - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Help: Atom Alternatives/Copy-Pasting Scripts
    Pulsar has a TTS package, for those who were very comfortable in Atom. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Libre-friendly IDEs?
    In addition to the already mentioned Emacs, I would check Pulsar, the Atom successor. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Eclipse Theia and Pulsar Editor, you can also consider the following products

Zed - Zed is a high-performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter.

Productivity Power Tools - Extension for Visual Studio - A set of extensions to Visual Studio 2012 Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity.

VSCodium - Binary releases of Visual Sudio Code without Microsoft branding, telemetry and licensing

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Notepad++ - A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.

Aide IDE - Open-source code editor, enhancing VS Code with AI tools for chat-edit flow, proactive linter suggestions, AI completions, and AST navigation.