📄 Microsoft Shut Down VSCode Competitor

Atom is an open source IDE developed since 2014 by GitHub on Electron.

One year later, in 2015, Microsoft started to develop competing VSCode IDE. The IDE is also open source and also based on Electron.

In 2018 Microsoft bought GitHub.

Now, four years later, in 2022 Microsoft closed Atom project.

It makes an interesting plot of events. Because Microsoft coincidentally started to develop an IDE on the similar concept like Atom, and then bought the company that developed it and closed the competitor.

Of course it does not mean Microsoft spend 7,5 billion in stock just to get rid of the competitor. GitHub on it’s own has a great value for Microsoft that puts all bids on open source and developer tools.

But it was quite lucky Microsoft could as well deal with Atom. Between 2015 and 2018 Microsoft struggled to compete with Atom that was on the best way to join the most popular cross language IDEs based on Electron.

However, in 2018, when GitHub was bought by Microsoft, VSCode out competed Atom in popularity and grown ever since, while suddenly Atom started to dissappear and it’s popularity started to decline.

It’s very interesting. Microsoft builds great IDEs, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are nice. And I am sure the company has a good will.

But it is also true that Microsoft has an interest in closing Atom. The way it was built was a…