Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Micro VS Light Table

Compare Micro VS Light Table and see what are their differences

Micro logo Micro

Modern terminal-based text editor

Light Table logo Light Table

Light Table is a new interactive IDE that lets you modify running programs and embed anything from...
  • Micro Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-12-16
  • Light Table Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-21

Micro features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Micro provides an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate even for beginners, making it accessible for new users.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Micro is available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, ensuring compatibility across various platforms.
  • Lightweight
    The editor is lightweight and fast, which contributes to a smooth and responsive user experience without consuming significant system resources.
  • Plugin System
    Micro supports plugins, allowing users to extend the editor's functionality to suit their specific needs.
  • Built-in Terminal
    It includes a built-in terminal that enables users to execute commands without leaving the editor environment.
  • Syntax Highlighting
    Micro provides syntax highlighting for many programming languages, enhancing code readability.

Possible disadvantages of Micro

  • Limited Features
    Compared to more established editors like VSCode or Sublime Text, Micro may lack some advanced features and integrations.
  • Less Community Support
    The user community around Micro is smaller compared to that of other text editors, which may result in fewer available resources like plugins, themes, or tutorials.
  • Infrequent Updates
    Updates and new features may be released less frequently, as it is not as widely maintained as more mainstream editors.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Use
    While basic operations are straightforward, some advanced features and customizations may require a learning curve.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    Although plugins can extend its functionality, out of the box, Micro may not have all the built-in features that other editors offer.

Light Table features and specs

  • Real-time Feedback
    Light Table provides real-time feedback as you write code, allowing for instant debugging and code corrections. This feature enhances the development speed and helps catch errors early.
  • Inline Evaluation
    The editor supports inline evaluation of code, meaning you can see the output of your code right next to it, without compiling or running the whole application. This boosts productivity and learning.
  • Plugin Ecosystem
    Light Table has a robust plugin ecosystem which allows you to extend its functionality to suit your specific coding needs. This provides considerable flexibility and customization.
  • Minimalistic Interface
    The user interface is clean and minimalistic, reducing distractions and helping developers to focus on coding tasks.
  • Responsive UI
    Light Table has a highly responsive and lag-free interface. This ensures that the development experience is fluid and seamless.

Possible disadvantages of Light Table

  • Limited Language Support
    While it supports a variety of languages, Light Table's support for newer or less common languages may be lacking compared to other more mature IDEs.
  • Community Activity
    The project has seen periods of low activity from its development community, which could be a concern for long-term support and updates.
  • Learning Curve
    Its novel interface and features can be unfamiliar to developers who are used to traditional IDEs, leading to a higher learning curve.
  • Limitations in Large Projects
    Light Table can struggle with handling very large projects, resulting in performance issues and slower response times, particularly when dealing with large codebases.
  • Dependency on Internet
    Some of its functionalities and plugins require an internet connection, which can be a limitation when working in an offline environment.

Analysis of Micro

Overall verdict

  • Micro is a good choice for users who want a lightweight, efficient, and modern text editor within the terminal. It offers enough features for daily text editing tasks while remaining easy to use and configure.

Why this product is good

  • Micro is a terminal-based text editor that offers a balance between simplicity and functionality. It provides intuitive keyboard shortcuts, plugin support, and syntax highlighting, which make it a convenient choice for both beginners and experienced users seeking an easy-to-use and fast text editing experience within the command line. Furthermore, its modern user interface and ability to be extended with Lua plugins make it adaptable to various workflows.

Recommended for

    Micro is recommended for developers, system administrators, and anyone who frequently works within a terminal environment and needs a straightforward yet powerful text editor. It's particularly suitable for those who are looking for a simpler alternative to more complex editors like Vim or Emacs.

Analysis of Light Table

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Light Table is a good choice for developers looking for an interactive and lightweight IDE that encourages experimentation. However, it may lack some of the more advanced features of other IDEs, and the project has seen less activity in recent years, which may affect its viability for long-term projects.

Why this product is good

  • Light Table is an integrated development environment (IDE) known for its real-time feedback capabilities and its focus on providing a reactive experience to developers. It offers a simple, clutter-free interface that is highly customizable. Its ability to instantly display the results of code execution allows developers to experiment and iterate quickly, which makes it appealing for learning and prototyping. The IDE supports various programming languages through plugins, making it versatile for different coding needs.

Recommended for

    Light Table is recommended for beginners who appreciate immediate feedback while learning to code, as well as for experienced developers looking to prototype new ideas quickly. It is particularly suited for users who favor minimalistic design and those who are working with languages that have strong plugin support in Light Table.

Micro videos

Microeconomics- Everything You Need to Know

More videos:

  • Review - MICROeconomics 19 Minute Review
  • Review - Game Gear Micro Review

Light Table videos

Cheap Amazon Light Table - Unboxing, Building and review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Micro and Light Table)
Text Editors
50 50%
50% 50
IDE
54 54%
46% 46
Software Development
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Micro and Light Table

Micro Reviews

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Light Table Reviews

10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Light Table is an IDE and text editor tool for software development. The tool offers fast feedback and allowing instant execution, debugging and access to documentation.
Source: www.guru99.com
10 Best Sublime Text Alternatives in 2019
Light Table is an IDE and text editor tool for software development. The tool offers fast feedback and allowing instant execution, debugging and access to documentation.
Source: www.guru99.com
Top 8 Sublime Text Alternatives You Can Use in 2019
While Light Table has limited language support compared to Sublime Text, it does come with a a few nice touches, such as Auto-complete everywhere, split views and a command palette. It also comes with a good selection of themes, but one of the major negatives of the program is that you can’t view image files in it in spite of the fact that it’s based on a browser platform....
Source: beebom.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Micro should be more popular than Light Table. It has been mentiond 80 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.

Micro mentions (80)

  • Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim
    Check out micro: https://micro-editor.github.io/ It's a terminal editor with mouse support and sane key bindings. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Notepad++ is 21 years old
    Micro editor (https://micro-editor.github.io/) works best for me but it's terminal-based. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • In your opinion, what is the text-editor equivalent of Openbox?
    Simple yet customizable? My thoughts go to Sublime Text if you want a GUI editor and closed-source is OK, or Micro if you want a TUI editor that is open source: https://micro-editor.github.io/ Like OpenBox, most casual users can be dropped in and know their way around their interfaces, and both options are kinda lightweight compared to other modern options. There is power available for serious customization if you... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • GNU Nano 8 comes with modern key bindings
    This is great! I used to install micro[0] as "nano with better shortcuts", but it was always a bit of an overkill, so I'm really happy with this change. One quirk that remains: even with --modernbindings, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+C will add to nano's clipboard, instead of replacing whatever is there. [0] https://micro-editor.github.io. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Modeless Vim
    Is Micro[0] not a better, more purpose-fit solution to these issues? (Syntax highlighting quality, etc) Prev discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37171294. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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Light Table mentions (14)

  • How Flash Games shaped the video game industry
    Having never used the authoring tool, can you point me towards something to model it after? I think a Bret Victor, "Inventing on Principal" style editor would be perfect, combined with some sort of scratch like Python IDE where each element is defined in terms of its reactive behaviors with other elements on a timeline. https://youtu.be/PUv66718DII?t=634 With some http://lighttable.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Inline previous results in Emacs Lisp
    For those like me who have never heard of it, I think OP is referring to this: http://lighttable.com. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • GTFL – A Graphical Terminal for Common Lisp
    Http://lighttable.com/ (somewhat tangentially related, I think?) Sorry this is so scattered I need to hit the hay LOL. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • "Stop Writing Dead Programs", a thought-provoking and entertaining talk by Jack Rusher
    He's got a point. I'm surprised he didn't mention Light Table. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Best Dev Tool pitches of all time?
    There was a massive amount of excitement around Light Table when it was first announced. I remember one or more pretty amazing videos. I don't have link(s) on-hand though. http://lighttable.com/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Micro and Light Table, you can also consider the following products

Neovim - Vim's rebirth for the 21st century

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

Vis - A vi-like editor based on Plan 9's structural regular expressions.

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

JOE - JOE is a full featured terminal-based screen editor which is distributed under the GNU General...

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing