Launched in 2011, Atom is a free and open-source text and source code editor for software developers working on a range of operating systems.

In fact, Atom could be considered a 21st-century Emacs, the venerable text editor that’s still in wide use among veteran programmers.

Ten weeks ago, code-hosting giant GitHub introduced its latest creation: a text editor named Atom. Now, the company is opening it up to the public after an apparently successful invite-only phase.

The first step in Atom’s transition from text editor to IDE is an optional package of features developed with Facebook called Atom-IDE, released in September 2017.

Atom's new Teletype feature lets you team up with fellow developers on a project and edit code together at the same time, with individual cursors.

Online code repository GitHub is taking on the venerable Emacs and Vim text editors by releasing a text editor of its own, called Atom, which it claims is more suited to the Web era of development.