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GitHub Gist VS CodeMirror

Compare GitHub Gist VS CodeMirror and see what are their differences

GitHub Gist logo GitHub Gist

Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others.

CodeMirror logo CodeMirror

CodeMirror is a versatile text editor implemented in JavaScript for the browser.
  • GitHub Gist Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-28
  • CodeMirror Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-19

GitHub Gist features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    GitHub Gist provides a simple interface for creating and sharing code snippets or textual information. Users can quickly create new gists without needing to set up a full repository.
  • Version Control
    Each gist benefits from built-in version control, allowing users to track changes and roll back to previous versions if necessary.
  • Collaboration
    Gists can be shared with others easily, and collaborators can comment on, suggest changes, and fork the gist for further modification, making it a good tool for code reviews and quick sharing.
  • Embed and Share
    Gists can be embedded into websites and blogs, making it easy to share code in a readable and aesthetically pleasing way.
  • Public or Private
    Users have the option to create public or secret gists, offering flexibility in terms of visibility and accessibility.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub Gist

  • Limited Features
    Gists are not full-fledged repositories and lack many features that GitHub repositories offer, such as project management tools and issue tracking.
  • Search and Organization
    Managing and finding gists can become challenging as there is no internal folder structure or advanced search capability to organize them effectively.
  • Security
    While gists can be made private, they are still accessible by anyone who has the URL. They do not provide the same level of access control as private GitHub repositories.
  • Limited Collaboration
    While gists support basic collaboration through comments and forks, they do not offer the comprehensive collaboration tools available in full GitHub repositories, such as detailed pull requests and issue tracking.
  • File Size Limitation
    Gists have a file size limit, making them unsuitable for larger files or projects. This limits their use for anything beyond simple or small code snippets.

CodeMirror features and specs

  • Extensible
    CodeMirror is highly customizable with a rich API that allows developers to extend its functionality to meet specific needs. It supports a wide variety of languages and can be adapted to different editing scenarios.
  • Lightweight
    CodeMirror is designed to be efficient and lightweight, suitable for integration into web applications without significantly impacting performance.
  • Wide Language Support
    It offers support for many programming languages out of the box, which makes it versatile for different programming tasks.
  • Active Community
    There is an active community of developers contributing to CodeMirror, which ensures regular updates, improvements, and bug fixes.
  • Embeddable
    CodeMirror can be easily embedded into existing web pages or web applications, enabling developers to provide a rich text editor experience.

Possible disadvantages of CodeMirror

  • Complex Configuration
    While CodeMirror is highly customizable, setting it up and configuring it to fit specific requirements can be complex and sometimes overwhelming for new users.
  • Minimal Default Features
    Out of the box, CodeMirror provides a basic editor without many advanced features, requiring extra configuration and plugins to add functionality like autocompletion or linting.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers new to CodeMirror, there may be a learning curve involved in understanding its structure and API, especially when creating custom plugins or features.
  • Performance on Large Files
    CodeMirror can experience performance issues when dealing with very large files or extremely complex documents, which may affect its suitability for all projects.
  • Limited Built-in Mobile Support
    CodeMirror’s default interface is not inherently optimized for touch interactions, making it less ideal for mobile or tablet editing without additional customization.

GitHub Gist videos

Deploy Website using GitHub Pages in less than 10 mins

CodeMirror videos

How to get value of CodeMirror text editor - step by step guide | CodeMirror #02

More videos:

  • Review - HTMLHint Linter Codemirror Integration

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GitHub Gist and CodeMirror)
Design Playground
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
32 32%
68% 68
JavaScript
100 100%
0% 0
Rich Text Editor
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using GitHub Gist and CodeMirror. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CodeMirror should be more popular than GitHub Gist. It has been mentiond 45 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.

GitHub Gist mentions (8)

  • Help…I’m slightly embarrassed to post this…but could anyone look at my profile and let me know if there are any “newbie red flags”. I’ve fallen in love with Python and decided to post projects from the classes I’ve taken. I’ve got more advanced projects to post and still have some project cleaning!
    If you are learning things, you could also create github gists. That way your repos will only be coding related, while you can create tutorials / work exercises in gists. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Best Practice for keeping a library of code/functions to reuse in future projects
    I use Github, both for full repos and for short gists. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Flutter Challenges: Challenge 02
    On the other hand, shared DartPads are just gists on GitHub so theoretically they can include code that works with different packages. Of course, such gists will not compile in DartPad and will be displayed as having errors :(. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Best way to make notes about coding?
    Perhaps github gists? https://gist.github.com/discover. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Some information that may be useful on the *nature of the problem* posed by the pandemic and SARS-cov-2 virus
    I looked at Github gists, but they are focused in displaying the markdown sourcecode (so e.g. Hyperlinks won't be clickable [1] ). Options just don't seem to be focused on simply hosting PDFs/information with clickable references. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

CodeMirror mentions (45)

  • 25 Project Ideas from Beginner to Advanced with Open Source Contributions
    NOTE: CodeMirror 6 exists, and is more mobile-friendly, more accessible, better designed, and much more actively maintained. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Integrating the ruff language server
    This post covers some background on the Language Server Protocol and then goes into a demonstration of how to integrate the ruff language server into a simple code editor built using CodeMirror. The code for the demonstration is availiable on github. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Adding a Code Editor to your React App
    From the official CodeMirror documentation:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)
    For those that don't know the author, Marijn Haverbeke, is the creator of CodeMirror (code editor) and later ProseMirror (text editor). https://codemirror.net/ https://prosemirror.net/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Show HN: Heynote – A Dedicated Scratchpad for Developers
    Performance is mostly handled by CodeMirror (https://codemirror.net/), the underlying editor that Heynote is built upon. It seems to handle quite large buffers well. Where I have seen some minor performance issues is when working with very large blocks in certain language modes. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GitHub Gist and CodeMirror, you can also consider the following products

Pastebin.com - Pastebin.com is a website where you can store text for a certain period of time.

ACE (Ajax Code Editor) - Focused and built towards coders, web designers, and web builders, ACE (Ajax Code Editor) can help...

PrivateBin - PrivateBin is a minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of...

ProseMirror - A toolkit for building rich-text editors on the web

hastebin - Pad editor for source code.

Quill - Powerful, API-driven rich text editor