GitHub will officially kill off the Atom text editor in December 2022, due to declining community engagement.
The announcement comes six months before the sunsetting date to give users time to migrate to other platforms.
The Microsoft-owned company is shifting its focus to cloud-based tools, which it considers the future of software development.
GitHub is sunsetting Atom, according to an official announcement on the company’s blog.
But developers may remember it best for laying the foundation of the Electron framework.
The platform has enabled the development of many cross-platform apps like GitHub Desktop, Slack, and Discord.
Why Is GitHub Killing Atom?
GitHub states, “Atom has not had significant feature development for the past several years.”
The company has been solely focusing on maintenance and security updates.
They also cite a significant decline in engagement from Atom’s community.
This is partly due to the success of new cloud-based tools includinga whole host of net internet ride IDEs.
Stack Overflow’s annual developer surveys paint a similar picture about Atom’s usage.
The2021 StackOverflow Developer Surveyreported that Atom was used by 12.94% of software developers from over 82,000 responses.
Despite its minimal usage, Atom has been one ofthe best text editorson the market.
What Happens Next?
With Atom’s demise imminent, you might be wondering what impact the move will have.
Well, as the statistics show, not many people use Atom.
But, despite that, this move is unlikely to signal the end for the text editor.
Max Brunsfeld, a core contributor of Atom, is working on a potential successor called Zed.
Zed is described as a “lightning-fast, collaborative code editor.”
