Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Monaco Editor VS ACE (Ajax Code Editor)

Compare Monaco Editor VS ACE (Ajax Code Editor) and see what are their differences

Monaco Editor logo Monaco Editor

A browser based code editor

ACE (Ajax Code Editor) logo ACE (Ajax Code Editor)

Focused and built towards coders, web designers, and web builders, ACE (Ajax Code Editor) can help...
  • Monaco Editor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23
  • ACE (Ajax Code Editor) Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-05

Monaco Editor features and specs

  • Rich Features
    Monaco Editor provides a wide array of features like syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, code folding, etc., making it a powerful option for code editing.
  • Extensibility
    The editor is highly extensible, allowing developers to customize and extend its functionalities to suit their specific needs.
  • VS Code Integration
    As the core editor used in Visual Studio Code, Monaco Editor inherits many of the capabilities and optimizations from VS Code, ensuring robust performance.
  • Web-Based
    Being a web-based editor, it can be easily integrated into web applications, making it highly accessible across different platforms.
  • Large Community
    Monaco Editor benefits from a large community and strong backing from Microsoft, ensuring ongoing development and support.

Possible disadvantages of Monaco Editor

  • Large Bundle Size
    The initial bundle size of the Monaco Editor can be quite large, which may impact the loading time of web applications using it.
  • Complexity
    Due to its rich feature set, the Monaco Editor can be complex to integrate and configure for new developers.
  • Browser Limitations
    Since it is a web-based tool, it might face performance limitations or issues in specific browsers or older versions.
  • Limited Mobile Support
    Monaco Editor is not optimized for mobile usage, potentially leading to a subpar experience on mobile devices.

ACE (Ajax Code Editor) features and specs

  • Rich Feature Set
    ACE provides syntax highlighting, line numbers, code folding, autocompletion, and more, making it quite powerful for web-based coding.
  • Customizability
    Users can extend and customize ACE by adding themes, changing the key bindings, and altering other settings to fit their workflow.
  • Wide Language Support
    ACE supports syntax highlighting for numerous programming languages, enabling developers to work with varied code bases within the same editor.
  • In-Browser Operation
    Being a web-based code editor, ACE can be used directly in the browser without any need for installation or configuration, providing immediate access across devices.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, ACE allows developers to contribute to the codebase, ensure transparency, and avoid vendor lock-in.

Possible disadvantages of ACE (Ajax Code Editor)

  • Performance Limitations
    Being a JavaScript-based editor running in the browser, ACE may experience performance issues when handling particularly large files compared to native desktop editors.
  • Lack of Advanced IDE Features
    ACE is mainly a code editor and does not provide some of the advanced features found in full-fledged IDEs, such as built-in debugging tools or integrated terminal support.
  • Limited Offline Use
    Since ACE is designed for web-based environments, there might be limitations or additional steps required to use it effectively offline.
  • Dependency on Browser
    The performance and capability of ACE can vary depending on the browser being used, making it subject to each browser's limitations and quirks.
  • Learning Curve
    Setting up custom configurations and understanding the full range of features may require a learning period, especially for users new to web-based editors.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Monaco Editor and ACE (Ajax Code Editor))
Text Editors
73 73%
27% 27
Developer Tools
84 84%
16% 16
Web Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
66 66%
34% 34

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Monaco Editor should be more popular than ACE (Ajax Code Editor). It has been mentiond 49 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.

Monaco Editor mentions (49)

  • Integrate VS Code editor in your project! Monaco Editor 🚀
    Monaco editor by Microsoft @monaco-editor/react Happy coding! 😃. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • An experiment in UI density created with Svelte
    VS Code Editor which is based on Electron, is really fast, even with large codebase & many open tabs. Their monaco engine (https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor/) uses custom, virtual code processor that is optimized for surgically updating underlying DOM. It also uses WebGL + canvas rendering to show minimap of the file. Similar approach (custom virtual processor) is leveraged by Google docs/sheets. Canvas... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • A structured note-taking app for personal use
    Fyi, if you are ever looking for a fun project you might be able to implement this. The vscode editor source is available as a library https://microsoft.github.io/monaco-editor/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • GIGO and VS-code: the Battle With Microsoft
    VScode uses the monaco-editor to display all editor screens in vscode including the markdown editor. A simple solution is to use the in built markdown file editor and call it a day. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • NPM workspace and vite - Read dependency build output (d.ts file)
    So lets say the project consists of two packages Lib and App in which Lib is a library and App is the frontend app which depends on Lib. Now I want to display a monaco powered code editor in App which has has access to all types of Lib. This means that I have to somehow read the *.d.ts file of Lib as a string to set it as "extra lib" for monaco. Source: over 1 year ago
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ACE (Ajax Code Editor) mentions (17)

  • AI-Powered Frontend UI Components Generator (Next.js, GPT4, Langchain, & CopilotKit)
    Ace Code Editor - an embeddable code editor written in JavaScript that matches the features and performance of native editors. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Show HN: A note-keeping system on top of Fossil SCM
    I used a note system built on top of Fossil as my primary system for quite a while. Here are the details in case anyone is interested. Fossil allows CGI extensions[1]. There's a database for tickets, but that's just a regular SQLite table that you can use to store anything you want, and it's version controlled and queryable. I stored the notes plus metadata in the tickets database. The CGI returned HTML with the... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Writing a (simple) code editor for the web?
    Hey there! Thanks for reaching out. Writing a code editor with syntax highlighting in a browser can be a little tricky, but it's definitely doable. One resource that might be helpful is the Ace Editor library (https://ace.c9.io/). It's a lightweight but powerful editor that includes syntax highlighting for a huge range of languages. You could also check out CodeMirror (https://codemirror.net/), which is another... Source: about 2 years ago
  • The ShnooTalk programming language
    The frontend uses the ace editor for syntax highlighting and then sends all the "text" you have typed to a python backend. The backend then writes all the text to a temporary directory and calls the compiler using subprocess (something similar to os.system). Source: over 2 years ago
  • MDSlides - Simple markdown presentation tool
    It is built using Reveal.js and Ace, and is a simple markdown presentation tool right in the browser. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Monaco Editor and ACE (Ajax Code Editor), you can also consider the following products

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

CodeMirror - CodeMirror is a versatile text editor implemented in JavaScript for the browser.

CSS Scan - Instantly check or copy computed CSS from any element for only ~95$

Emscripten - Emscripten is an LLVM to JavaScript compiler.

CodePen - A front end web development playground.

QuickJS - Application and Data, Build, Test, Deploy, and JavaScript Compilers