12 Essential Atom Packages for Web Development

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In the rapidly evolving world of web development, tools come and go. While Atom, GitHub’s once-beloved code editor, officially reached its end-of-life in December 2022, its impact on the developer community and its innovative package ecosystem were profound. This retrospective delves into the 12 essential **Atom packages for web development** that powered developer workflows, exploring the features that made Atom a favorite and how its legacy continues to influence modern development environments in 2025.

For years, Atom offered a unique blend of customizability and power. Even as its development concluded, understanding the principles behind its most popular extensions provides valuable insight into what developers seek in their tools today. We’ll look back at what made Atom special and how you can apply these lessons to your current web development stack.

The Legacy of Atom: Remembering a Beloved Editor

VS Code may have won the hearts and minds of web developers over the past few years, but at its peak, GitHub’s Atom editor was celebrated as one of the most capable and user-friendly code editors on the market. Its appeal stemmed from several key factors:

• Installers were available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, ensuring broad accessibility.
• It was continually updated throughout its active development phase, incorporating new features and performance improvements.
• Early criticisms regarding speed were addressed, making it a responsive tool for many.
• It remained free to download and use without restrictions, fostering a large and active community.

Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018, which led to the company having two good Electron-based code editors. While Atom’s long-term future became increasingly uncertain after the acquisition, development continued for several years. Ultimately, GitHub announced in June 2022 that Atom would be archived in December 2022, shifting focus to other developer tools. Despite its official sunset, Atom’s innovative approach to extensibility and its strong community left an indelible mark on the landscape of code editors, influencing many of the tools web developers use today in 2025.

Atom Packages and Themes: A Hackable Ecosystem

Atom always publicized itself as a “hackable text editor for the 21st Century.” The base install had comparatively few features, but you could extend it infinitely with add-ons known as *packages*.

At its peak, more than 3,000 Atom themes and 9,000 Atom packages were available. Part of the reason for this immense popularity and growth was that Atom could be extended using familiar web technologies. If you were a Node.js or client-side JavaScript developer, you knew enough to create your own Atom packages and enhance Atom in any way you desired, making it an incredibly powerful and personalized tool for web development.

How to Install Atom Packages (A Historical Guide)

Adding Atom packages was quite simple, as Atom came with a built-in package manager. Many developers were attracted to Atom partly because it was so easy to install Atom packages. While Atom is no longer actively maintained, understanding its package installation process gives insight into its user-friendliness:

1. Open the Atom editor.
2. Click on the Edit menu in the top navigation bar.
3. Select Preferences. A new Settings tab would open.
4. Click on the + Install menu item, and a search field would appear on the right.
5. Search for new Atom packages by name.
6. When you’ve located the Atom package you desired, hit the Install button.

Clicking on the Packages menu item would show you which Atom packages were currently installed. Anything you’d installed yourself appeared under the Community Packages menu item. You’d notice there was also a Core Packages menu item, listing those packages installed by default. You could disable these if you wanted, but it was generally better not to do so, as this would affect the basic functionality of the editor.

Installing Atom packages from the command line

Atom also shipped with a command-line tool called apm (which stands for Atom Package Manager). You could also use this tool to install packages directly from the terminal.

The syntax was as follows: apm install <package-name>.

You could configure apm by using the apm config command-line option or by manually editing the ~/.atom/.apmrc file. Typing apm help would give you an idea of what else it could do.

And with that said, here are twelve of the best Atom packages — *plus a few bonus options* — which made Atom into an even better code editor for web development during its active life cycle…

1. File Icons

Atom’s default file and folder icons were best described as “functional.” An icon set such as file-icons improved the editor’s appearance and made it easier to locate files of a specific type. This enhanced visual clarity is a feature modern editors continue to prioritize.

• Get the File Icons package here: file-icons

Searching “icon” in the + Install pane used to locate dozens of alternative options.

2. Project Manager

Atom provided simple folder-based project management. It was good enough if you were switching between a couple of projects, but project-manager was ideal for anything more sophisticated. It offered command palette options and an editable JSON file where you could define projects with their own custom settings such as colors, tab preferences, and so on. This level of project-specific customization is now a standard expectation in top-tier editors.

• Get the Atom Project Manager package here: project-manager

3. Sync Settings

If you were running Atom on more than one device, it was incredibly useful to synchronize settings, key bindings, and snippets across installations. While you could manually synchronize by cloning files in the Config folder (Settings, then Open Config Folder), sync-settings provided an easier automated option. Settings were saved to a Gist, but other Atom packages permitted you to choose a local folder or Git repository. This feature is now crucial for any developer working across multiple machines or in a team.

• Get the Atom Sync Settings package here: sync-settings

4. Todo Show

You’d started Atom, opened a folder, then … *what next?* The todo-show Atom package revealed comments scattered through your project containing keywords such as TODO, FIXME, and CHANGED, but you could also add your own regular expressions. This simple yet powerful way to track tasks directly within the codebase significantly boosted productivity.

• Get the Atom Todo Show package here: todo-show

5. Minimap

minimap was one of the most popular Atom packages, boasting more than seven million downloads in its active lifetime. It displayed a condensed view of your code on the right-hand side of the code editor window, which was a great help for quick navigation. This feature enters your subconscious; you won’t think you’re using it, but you’ll miss it when it’s not there. It’s a testament to good UI/UX design that this feature is now native to many modern editors.

Get the Atom Minimap package here: minimap

6. Highlight Selected

When you select a keyword or variable in VS Code, Sublime Text, or Notepad++, it highlights all other instances. highlight-selected brought that feature to Atom and was even better when combined with minimap-highlight-selected, providing an unparalleled code navigation experience.

• Get the Highlight Selected Atom package here: highlight-selected
• Get the minimap-highlight-selected package here: minimap-highlight-selected

7. Auto Close HTML

As the name suggests, this package automatically added a closing HTML tag when you completed the opening tag. This may have been a simple package, but many developers found themselves unable to cope without auto-closing HTML tags! autoclose-html doubled markup creation velocity. It worked out of the box, but the package also allowed you to define which tags should complete inline (such as <p></p> or <li></li>) and which should create newline blocks (such as <article> ... </article> or <ol> ... <ol>). This essential feature is now a core component of most modern editors, highlighting Atom’s foresight.

• Get the Auto Close HTML Atom package here: autoclose-html

8. Pigments

Most editors have CSS color previewers, but few matched the pigments package for Atom. It parsed colors, CSS custom properties, pre-processor variables, and even executed color-changing functions such as lighten() and darken(). It scanned your source files to build a palette of colors so you could reference them anywhere. This visual debugging tool for colors greatly simplified CSS work.

• Get the Pigments Atom package here: pigments

Also, the Color Picker package was for anyone who’d rather select colors than remember their names or hex values.

• Get the Color Picker package here: color-picker

9. Linter

You could run linters from the command line, but it’s not as quick or effective as live, in-editor code validation. Linter was one of the best. It was fast, and less intrusive than some competitors.

Note that Linter was the core Atom package that provided an API for dozens of programming languages. Some, such as HTML and CSS, required no further software. Others, such as eslint, required the Node module and configuration settings (full instructions were provided).

Linting your code will greatly improve your code quality, so I encourage you to give it a try in your current editor.

• Get the Linter package here: linter
• Get the HTMLHint package here: linter-htmlhint
• Get the Atom CSSLint package here: linter-csslint
• Get the ESLint package here: linter-eslint

10. Auto Detect Indentation

Coders will never agree whether to use tabs or spaces. Even when they do, they may prefer them in two, four, or eight character flavors. While a topic of endless debate, auto-detect-indentation worked out what the project required so you needed never worry about it. This ensured consistent code formatting across projects and teams, a feature that’s indispensable in 2025.

• Get the Atom Auto Detect Indentation package here: auto-detect-indentation

Alternatively, you could force everyone’s code to match your preferred style using Atom Beautify:

• Get the Atom Beautify package here: atom-beautify

11. Teletype

If you’ve ever used Live Share for VS Code, you’ll understand how it’s revolutionized pair programming. The extension allows two people to remotely edit code in the same workspace at the same time.

teletype was the equivalent package for Atom. It was a beta service, but looked good and seemed reliable, showcasing Atom’s commitment to collaborative development.

• Get the Atom Teletype package here: teletype

12. More Atom Packages: Beyond the Core

We’ve covered what were, in our view, some of the best Atom packages. We’ll finish with some special mentions that didn’t make it to the top list but were still really useful and worth looking at.

• Emmet (previously known as Zen Code) could expand CSS-like expressions into HTML tags: emmet
• If you were creating REST web services, Atom’s REST Client provided a quick HTTP testing tool. It was no match for powerful alternatives such as Postman, but was great for quick and dirty testing: rest-client

  

• Finally, there was no need to manually check for updates. auto-update-packages verified your packages every six hours and did the work for you: auto-update-packages

Atom’s End-of-Life: What It Means for Developers

GitHub’s decision to archive Atom in December 2022 marked the end of an era for many web developers. The primary reason cited was the shift in focus towards other developer tools and services, particularly given the overwhelming market dominance of Microsoft’s own VS Code, which also runs on the Electron framework. For Atom users, this meant a necessary transition to alternative editors. VS Code, with its vast extension marketplace, similar Electron-based architecture, and active development, became the natural successor for most. While it was sad to see a beloved tool go, the archiving of Atom also highlighted the dynamic nature of the tech industry, where innovation constantly pushes the boundaries and developers must adapt to new, often more efficient, workflows. The spirit of Atom’s hackability and community contribution lives on in the open-source ecosystems of modern editors.

Modern Web Development: Beyond the Editor

While the choice of code editor, and the packages that enhance it, is fundamental to a developer’s daily work, successful web development in 2025 encompasses far more than just your preferred text editor. Building robust, high-performing, and engaging websites and applications requires a holistic approach that includes strategic planning, expert design, seamless backend integration, rigorous testing, and continuous optimization. These elements are critical for delivering digital solutions that truly drive business value.

If your team is navigating the complexities of modern web development, or if you’re looking to elevate your online presence with professional web design, SEO, and digital marketing strategies, partner with experts who understand the full spectrum of development needs. At WebPinn, we leverage the latest technologies and best practices to create powerful, scalable, and user-friendly web solutions. Whether you’re building a new platform, optimizing an existing site, or seeking comprehensive digital growth strategies, we’re here to help you achieve your goals. Contact WebPinn today for a personalized quote and discover how we can transform your web development vision into reality.

After-hours Add-ons (A Fond Farewell)

If your key count (keycount) proved you’d done enough for the day, relax by reading xkcd comics, or have a quick game of Tetris, Reversi, Pong, Snake, or SimCity! These fun packages were a testament to Atom’s playful and experimental community.

Have I missed your favorite Atom add-on? We’d love to hear about the Atom packages that shaped your web development journey. Share your thoughts in the comments below! If you’re ready to discuss modern web solutions, remember to get a quote from WebPinn.