--- title: Brackets Reviews meta_title: 'Brackets Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 262 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Brackets works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.4 review_count: 262 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-12' parent_category: name: Editor url: https://www.g2.com/categories/editor --- # Brackets Reviews **Vendor:** Adobe **Category:** [Text Editor Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/text-editor) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 262 ## About Brackets Brackets is a modern, open-source code editor specifically designed for web development, focusing on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Developed by Adobe and released in 2014, Brackets is built using web technologies, making it lightweight and highly extensible. It is cross-platform, supporting macOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems. Brackets offers a range of features tailored to enhance the web development workflow. Key Features and Functionality: - Inline Editors: Brackets allows developers to open a window into the code they care about most, enabling quick edits without switching between file tabs. - Live Preview: This feature provides a real-time connection to the browser, allowing developers to see changes to CSS and HTML instantly on screen. - Preprocessor Support: Brackets offers support for preprocessors, facilitating a more efficient workflow for developers who use them. - Extensibility: Being open-source, Brackets supports a wide range of extensions that add functionality such as Git integration, Emmet for high-speed HTML and CSS workflow, and more. Primary Value and User Solutions: Brackets addresses the needs of web developers by providing a streamlined, efficient coding environment that integrates visual tools directly into the editor. Features like Live Preview and Inline Editors reduce the need to switch between different applications, thereby enhancing productivity. Its open-source nature and extensibility allow developers to customize the editor to fit their specific workflow, making it a versatile tool for modern web development. ## Brackets Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users enjoy the **ease of use** in Brackets, appreciating its intuitive interface and powerful live preview capabilities. (3 reviews) - Users love the **Live Preview** feature of Brackets for real-time editing and quick feedback during development. (3 reviews) - Users love the **easy integrations** of Brackets, enhancing their workflow with useful extensions and live previews. (2 reviews) - Users value the **productivity improvement** from Brackets, benefiting from fast coding and time-saving features. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **fast and intuitive user interface** of Brackets, enhancing their front-end coding experience. (2 reviews) - Users value the **usefulness of extensions** in Brackets for quick and lightweight features, enhancing their coding experience. (1 reviews) - Users appreciate the **rich selection of extensions** in Brackets, enhancing their coding experience and productivity. (1 reviews) - File Compatibility (1 reviews) - Free (1 reviews) - Large File Handling (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **plugin issues** frustrating, with navigation difficulties and concerns over unsupported extensions and potential risks. (2 reviews) - Users experience problematic **crashes during Live Preview** and notice the editor is losing support and updates. (1 reviews) - Users find the **lack of IDE features** in Brackets limits functionality and affects their development experience. (1 reviews) - Users find the **poor interface design** makes navigating plugins challenging, often leading to a cluttered experience. (1 reviews) - Users express concern over **software reliability** , noting potential discontinuation and lack of support for Brackets. (1 reviews) - Users report **update issues** with Brackets, leading to crashes and lack of support for modern frameworks. (1 reviews) ## Brackets Reviews ### 1. lightwegh editor **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Halini V. | Front End Developer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 18, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** simple to use specially for quick changes **What do you dislike about Brackets?** is a bit difficult when you need to preview projects on PHP **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Development ### 2. Great free text editor for basic code editing **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris L. | UX Designer, Events Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets is totally free, and it lets you edit several different kinds of code. It will tell you when you've forgotten to close a div, or if the syntax of your script is off. It also allows you to open an entire project folder rather than have to hunt around for the file that you want to edit. This makes it great for people who occasionally need to edit a bit of code, and those who are running an open source local development environment. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** It has a habit of trying to close things off for me that occasionally injects a tag where I didn't want one. It also isn't quite as full featured as a software like visual studio, which has a million tricks to help power users hunt down what file is referenced where in a complex project. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** There are a lot of text editors out there, and not a lot of differentiation between them in my opinion. Brackets is free, and gets the job done pretty well. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Brackets lets me edit snippets of code from HTML and CSS to Javascript, SQL, and PHP. I can make changes to the various software products that I work on without having to have a license to visual studio. ### 3. Perfect tool for front end development **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The best thing about the Brackets is a Live preview of the code with chrome extension and quick editing option within build CSS and many more great features. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** While working large number of code lines it gets crashed and very difficult to get the updated code **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** From a personal point of view, I can’t see myself switching to Brackets for the server side work. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Brackets is a lightweight, yet powerful, modern text editor. We blend visual tools into the editor so you get the right amount of help when you want it without getting in the way of your creative process. ### 4. Enjoy Live Preview While Coding **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jade C. | Business Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I love the Live Preview Brackets allows for, it makes it quicker and easier for me to design my website. I like how I can bring in all of my files while working on my projects so I don't have to guess what it all will look like. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** The Live Preview gets all wonky sometimes if I forget to close off something and I'll have to restart the program and my browser to get it running properly again. It's also kind of annoying to get new files into my project while it is running. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Website coding, fast live previews ### 5. A complete text editor **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 29, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Fast and easy configuration combined with community plugins and good performance **What do you dislike about Brackets?** To have a complete environment is necessary to install add-ons **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Customizable, fast and easy text editor **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Edit and read web projects ### 6. Easy to use and with plugins **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 12, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Easy to use, left bar with project folders and files, and its built-in live browser preview. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Nothing specifically. To say something, personally, I don't like the default theme. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Speed in editing files of any type, detecting its programming language. ### 7. Out of the box product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bhavesh G. | QA Engineer, Financial Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets provide a lot more features than its competitors. It has never disappointed whenever I have used it.The fact that its open source also makes it stand out from the crowd. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** It looks some way off from its potential. I think that can be tapped as there is scope for more. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Company's product designing and feature enhancements. ### 8. Text editor for web designer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Its come with default auto complete Syntax for maximum front end language **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Its is mainly concerned in front end Not for back end languages . Lots of extension which makes you confuse . **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** A great text editor for front end developer and web designer . ( Must have ) **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Web animation ### 9. Have to have it **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I like brackets much better compared to sublime, it has a cleaner interface and easier to use **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There is really nothing much that I don't like, maybe I wish they have more skins? **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** JavaScript projects, web design ### 10. Simple, easy to use, and FREE! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michelle D. | Data Manager, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** We have been using Brackets as our primary text editor for our district websites for a few years. We moved to Brackets when our licenses for Dreamweaver expired. It's a great free alternative, with many nice features. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** No major complaints. It's free. The extensions add a lot of nice features. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** After installing Brackets, be sure to check out the free extensions. We have utilized quite a few. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have saved a lot of money continuing our web development with Brackets over other paid applications. The software is able to recognize the coding structure for various languages, such as HTML, CSS, PHP, JS, etc. ### 11. Brackets 1.11 Review - Excellent **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Patrick B. | Owner, Marketing & Sales, Logistics, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The interface keeps getting better. Very easy to use and my favorite code editor. It alerts me when code is suspect and allows quick testing into any browser. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There is really nothing that I dislike about this product. We use it all the time. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Download Brackets for a great experience in code editing. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Code testing and editing (not original code writing). ### 12. Beautiful and simple tool for coding **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Etienne S. | Infographiste, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 19, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The visual appearance of the software: it is simple, modern and sharp. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** When I open a HTML tag (for eg.:
), I hate that Brackets automatically inserts the closing tag (
). More often, I insert tags only at the end, so I need to delete every time this ending tag. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Brackets is better than NotePad++, at my opinion. I is easier and more performant. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** At my opinion, it is the best coding tool I've ever use. I often use it to create email HTML signatures. It is also a good tool to just create raw text file (to be sure that I don't have any formatting). ### 13. Static Web Application Development With Brackets **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sabbir M. | Graduate Teaching Assistant, Computer Science, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 17, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The hosting mode Brackets provide is the best feature I love about it. When you are writing webpages in brackets, it has a hosting mode which opens a browser and updates the page in real time as we update the html code. With the hosting mode, other static pages and links (css and images) can be included relatively. So we don't need to put the absolute links for testing. Starting from the development, we can put relative link instead of absolute. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Only thing I have realized is its performance. It seems that the memory usage and cpu usage are high. Compared to other text editor, it acts slow. Also brackets is unable to open some text files. I have seen that it is unable to open text files with extension .dat, .log. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** I recommend to use Brackets for the following reasons: - it has a hosted mode so that you can directly test your static web pages. You don't need to work on separate servers for test. - The hosted mode updates you webpage in realtime. i.e. if you made any code change, it is reflected in the browser - brackets recognizes file formats html, css, javascript. So it is able to format those files properly. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using brackets to edit static files like html and css style files. Besides I have also developed static website completely in brackets. ### 14. One of the best code/test editors on Mac **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kunal V. | iOS Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Very easy management of open files. Ability to reopen all previously opened files. Live preview features for js and html files is also very helpful in those scenarios. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** No support for basic Auto-complete and swift syntax highlighting is not present. It would be much more helpful for swift devs if the highlighting is present for swift. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** On Macs there's no competitor to Brackets. Just switch and you'll know why. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Very time efficient, especially in managing multiple podfiles for various iOS projects. Quick editing of Source code files eliminate the need of opening XCode everytime, which is more power hungry and time consuming. ### 15. Best text editor for Macbooks. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Md Azmain A. | Computer Science Teaching Assistant, Higher Education, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 31, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets has a very sleek and clean look. I love the white background with dark grey borders. The colors are not too strong but not weak either. The pallette is very gentle on the eyes and that's important when you are spending 7+ hours infront of the monitor. The sidebar allows you to move between files very easily as well. The Live preview feature is great for seeing your html files on the fly and helps you visualize the finished prodcut. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There is no way to run the files directly and that can annoying. It's great for client side coding but not so great for server side programming. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** For programming purposes. Brackets was my choice when I needed a text editor for my Macbook. ### 16. Easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I really like using Brackets for html as well as viewing .json files. It's got a nice view feature so I can view my html/css right from the program. I also like that I can have several files up at once to work on. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** So far I haven't found anything that stands out as really obnoxious. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's a great program to use to work on code and see the outcome right in the program itself. I've used a few different programs for designing websites, and this is my favorite one. ### 17. Fantastic product and awesome editor **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 31, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Formatting features and interactive menu and great plugins **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Slowness at the start and may take little more to get used too **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** For sure is a great product **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Code edit and beautification ### 18. Brackets Review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ankush K. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** It's the most lightest version of any software I've ever used for front end development. The displayed hierarchy of project is really cool and you can easily switch between files. I gives you a lot of sample files before you start with any project. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Although it’s essentially a text editor and therefore suitable for coding pretty much anything, but it’s optimized for HTML, CSS, and JS (as well as derivatives such as SASS, Less, CoffeeScript, and so on. But it's not preferred for back end development. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** I'd recommend this to everyone who do front end development as it's very light weight and fast. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developing front-end framework for web applications using HTML, CSS, Javascript. I use it for my personal projects as well as solving industry level problems. ### 19. Amazing product with extendible plugins **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Graphic Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** This is something that I use everyday. The most things that I like about this is the coding structure and how easy it is to use. I also like that is multi-platform so I can code on Linux and windows without any drawbacks. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** The only thing I don't like about the the program is that it doesn't integrate well with FTP. I could be wrong about this though. It might have a FTP plugin to extend it. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** If you need something to build the web with just code, this is a good start. You have to be experienced in the languages in order to use it though. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use this program to map out the installations of October CMS. I also use it to code and design a lot of the websites that I host. ### 20. Brackets gives better functionality than standard editor or CMS **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Laura S. | Web Designer, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 07, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I like the ability to wrap tags around your content, and "beautify" your css, making it easier to read in the file. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I don't like how you have to download extra stuff to get the entire functionality of the program. It should be included with the original program. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has helped me make cleaner code, which helps with collaboration between teammates. ### 21. Fantastic open source editor **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steven C. | Corporate Applications Summer Student, Government Administration, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 30, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Live Preview is definitely one of the best features. Changes to a file are automatically updated without having to do a manual refresh to a page. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Editor is mostly tailored for front end development **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** front end development has been a breeze with this editor ### 22. The best option for plain text editing on Mac **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Richard R. | Applications Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 25, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** As a programmer that constantly needs to edit text config files, the aesthetics and functionality of Brackets gives me the best app for the job. Plain and simple. The ability to modify the json config for Brackets itself to customize the experience is a huge bonus. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** While I greatly appreciate the ability to modify the config file directly, I believe that some users might appreciate a more user-friendly customization option. Or sometimes an advanced user might want a quick fix without editing the json file. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** If you are looking for an advanced plain text editor for development within Mac, Brackets is pretty much the best there is outside of text console editing. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am constantly editing plain text configuration files for hardware and its associated programming. The ability to cleanly edit a config file without random 'invisible' control codes being inserted into the code make it mandatory to have an advanced text editor. In the Mac environment, outside of editing documents within the command shell, Brackets is the best option. ### 23. WEB DESIGN EDITOR **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fredrick M. | Information Technology Supervisor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 21, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** i have been using brackets for about 4 years now it has not disappointed me yet,what i love most about brackets is the live preview button which is readily available on the right panel which makes it easy for me when am making my websites,i dont have to repeatedly reload the browser **What do you dislike about Brackets?** well i dont know if its my pc or what but sometimes it just lags a little bit when you open it **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Since its the best editor, i would suggest adding virtual emulators for app development so that i wont need any other editor for my app development. i love the way you put that file list on the left but i am a lover of tabs so maybe you can put that as a additional option for people like me who loves tabs **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** web developement,..many features which increases efficiency when coding ### 24. The BEST coding editor for budding engineers!! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Giusy C. | CEO, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets is definitely my favorite code editor out there! It's easy to use, you can write multiple languages on it and the best part is, it connects all your code pages together and runs them easily in order to test you what you're working on. If you are learning to write code, it is definitely the best editor to use! **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I have been using Brackets for about 6 months and I haven't come across anything I don't like yet. However, when first beginning to use it, it can be a little difficult to understand how to switch projects around on it. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Download it!! I am so happy I found this text editor. It is making my code writing journey so much easier! **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been learning mostly Front End development on Brackets and building small websites for friend's side businesses, etc... Brackets just makes it so easy to work on projects! ### 25. Not the Best - But Not the Worst Either **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raj T. | Grader CSCI:109 Introduction to Computer Science, Higher Education, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The Project Management is nicely handled in Brackets! **What do you dislike about Brackets?** After using Sublime Text and Notepad++, you wouldn't quite use Brackets! Others are just so much better **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Probably if you are a Naive Developer, go for it. Else, Meh! **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developing Websites HTML-CSS-JavaScript-PhP. ### 26. Best Free Text Editing App **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 29, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Highly visual and lightweight open source code editor. The viewing options like split view makes it easy to compare documents and edit/code fast. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** You can't complain when its free! I have not run into any issues that I can think of with Brackets. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Highly recommend any front-end developer to download this! It's free and easy to use! **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Super easy interface for all user types that want to code/edit. ### 27. Simple text editor **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Love that this is simple and easy to use. I can quickly make updates and see them in my browser without having to add any shortcuts manually. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I dislike that it does not recognize languages when beginning to write code. Instead it makes me save the file types and I wish it would just be able to translate. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** very simple for first-time coders as well as advanced. easily integrates with other tools for team collaboration. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** writing code and debugging with ease. Brackets was the first tool a began debugging with and I love it. ### 28. Most essential tool for a web developer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shivam T. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 23, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The UI and plugin support makes everything easy. The feature where the direct view of css code is visible from html is the best thing I liked about it. Also the live reload feature is great! **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Never faced any difficulty while using it. It's great to work on Brackets. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Every web developer must try this, I guarantee you will switch to Brackets once you use it. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has eased my working on web development projects. ### 29. Good for basic editing **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Automotive | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Powerful plugins, easy to set up and use immediately **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Lacks project searching and the ability to jump directly to a file when clicking on the file in the code. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** It's great if you need a simple text editor for a small project. It is meant to be used for web development, but it falls short of a full-scale solution. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's good for quick prototyping or simple file editing. It has great interaction with Photoshop files. ### 30. Effective software without extra hassle **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James R. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 16, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The simplicity of the interface makes working much easier and effective. It's also customizable with plugins, so if you need something extra you can usually install it at will instead of being stuck with a bunch of features you don't need. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** The learning curve when coming from DreamWeaver can be a bit high and make the program feel not as responsive. Simple things like hitting the 'end' button to go to the end of a line instead of the file takes a bit to get used to. I also wish that there was an easier way to keep files open without cluttering up the left column. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** The learning curve can be annoying once you realize that the DreamWeaver keyboard shortcuts don't all work in Brackets. There are plugins to help with some of that, and in some cases you just have to retrain yourself. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** This program is essential to website building and code writing. Since it isn't bogged down by unnecessary plugins or "helpful tools", I can focus on writing clean code without extra hassle. ### 31. Perfect **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Very useful features, beautiful UI, easy to use **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Doesn't effect me, but live preview only works with chrome **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** My speed of workflow has improved ### 32. Brackets is very useful and intuitive to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Biotechnology | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets is useable with many languages. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Brackets does not organize files well. Files are not by default organized by folder. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Great product **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Brackets allows me to develop code efficiently ### 33. Decent editor with some unique features **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Phil A. | Software Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 10, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I appreciate that Brackets has focused visual tools and preprocessor support. It makes web development a breeze. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** One of things I dislike about Brackets is that it is very similar to a lot of other editors out there. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** If you need a quick, intuitive, free and open source IDE for web development, Brackets is your tool. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Brackets occasionally for simple Javascript apps that I work on. It simplifies the process of testing code. ### 34. Does everything you need a text editor to do. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jennifer Vi S. | Student Assistant, IT Support, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** It has a clean and simple interface which helps keep distractions out of the way. It also has various plugins which can add quite a bit of functionality. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** At times it can be underpowered, but that's what you can use a terminal for. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is a great tool to use when working on multiple projects as you're able to keep multiple windows open for each one which allows you to cross reference if needed. ### 35. Best Web Editor **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bhanuka R. | Owner, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Can Edit Web files quickly. Easy to use and Lightweight. Can get live preview of code. Code suggestion. Can add Extensions. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Can't preview php files. Not Suitable for php , python developers. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Yes. The Live Preview feature is incredibly useful, combining the advantages of coding in the browser with those of a dedicated editor. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Develop Web Sites. ### 36. Easy, free, awesome! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2018 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The live preview feature is awesome. Other than that is has the same standard features as any other competitor, but I found it easiest to start on as a beginner. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Sometimes there is connection issues with the live preview feature, otherwise it is great! **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Highly recommend, especially for beginners **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quicker coding, debugging. ### 37. Easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Easy to see, review and edit html code. I particularly like the Live Preview feature to see what I've messed up and it also allows for easy testing of links. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There's nothing I dislike about Brackets. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Take your time and learn to experiement. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick and easy to resolve basic html issues for emails and basic web pages. ### 38. Most versatile compiler **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian A. | Freelance Graphic Designer, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 29, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The versatility of brackets is outstanding: the auto-fill function helps to speed up your work a lot, the multi-screen view is so useful, but the feature I like the most is the live-view webpage you compile, which allows you to check your results with one click. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There's nothing I dislike about the software. It works fast and well, aside from be free. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** I suggest the software to whoever wants to learn coding with a big solid freeware software. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've learned how to code, how to make webpages and different coding languages ### 39. The Brackets Experience **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ruhi K. | UI/UX Design (Intern), Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 15, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets is my favorite because it simplifies the coding experience with its colored labeling. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I do not dislike anything about brackets, as its function as a coding environment is pretty straightforward. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** I have used several programming environments from Atom to Dreamweaver, and I always come back to Brackets because it is the most efficient and intuitive. The code highlighting especially makes it easy to tell when and where code is broken. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps with coding efficiency which is always a plus. ### 40. Great Editor I use very often **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Josh G. | Customer Experience, Financial Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 29, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I love how simple it is to use and how easy it is to get started. I also like the vast amount of pluggins available **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I wish support would be added for auto running some other applications and compiling code natively rather then requiring an addon be used. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use brackets mainly for code editing ### 41. Bracket Code **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephanie N. | Owner, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 15, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Customization with interface that is fun **What do you dislike about Brackets?** brackets crashes too much due to all apps **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Work on the problems where the program crashes a lot. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Makes my workflow fasters with the shortcuts. ### 42. Quick and simple to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Live Preview is the best feature. You can see the changes you are making without having to refresh the browser. I also like how you can quickly edit an external CSS file from within another file without having to open it. Also the autocomplete feature is great. The UI is simple and basic, without distractions. The sidebar gives you quick access to your files and folders. It also allows you to have extensions installed adding several capabilities to it. It's open source so everyone can contribute. Brackets is a great tool for any website coding. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** If you are not a coder, you might be in trouble to change its settings. Brackets shows the settings options as .json files, so it's not visual, instead you have to change the code within those file to change the settings. It's easy enough but completely designed for coders. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Greatest benefit is that it's very easy and simple to use, pretty basic code editing tool, however it has enough features to boost your productivity. ### 43. Custom tailored text editing software for the avid developer. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** The fact I am able to customize the behavior of the program using javascript to my liking has enhanced my workflow. On many text based editors the tags automatically close when you create the opening tag, all this has ever done is slow me down because I know where I want them to go to keep them orderly and not stuck at the end of the line I am working on. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Some larger files can hinder the performance dramatically, when loading in a CSV that I use which contains every car make model and year and their respective speaker sizes and locations it tends to lag very badly. This is quite a large file for text, but should be relatively light on system performance considering it is about 18 MB when I'll often work on graphics files over 1 GB. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Make sure you customize it to suit your needs before judgment is made. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I can use it to problem solve and find errors in the file that can lead to unwanted functionality and errors in our web pages. The program highlights the beginning tag that you are working on as well as the end tag which can show you if it is in the wrong place or got deleted by accident. ### 44. Fast, reliable, beautiful, customizable **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aris G. | Graphic Designer, Graphic Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2016 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets itself is developed by using just CSS JavaScript and HTML which means its open source. It's lightweight and really fast. Its live preview feature works as charm. It has library of themes and extensions to be customized. Some extensions really bring the product to the next level by giving ability to shorten the code and work directly on ftp server. It works much better and easier and it's more user friendly than any software out there including Adobe Dreamweaver if you're writing the code from scratch. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** There's really not much I dislike about the product. It gets better with every update. The only thing I'd point out is not being able to use chromes developer tools which disconnects the preview page from brackets' live local server. although you can change the colors inside CSS by pressing ctrl/cmd + E it's sometimes crucial to use developer tools when you're working with just one display. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** I'd suggest those who are new to Brackets to browse around for tips and tricks. Believe me it has a lot of functions need to be discovered and extensions that are crucial for optimized user experience. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was using Adobe Dreamweaver when I came across to brackets. I was amazed by its speed and how better it is to view the live preview directly in the browser. It helps me to write CSS and Html in the same window. it made the whole process of writing the code easy and fun. If you're using more than one display you can split the brackets screen to change the CSS and the HTML by viewing the preview of the changes you make on real time inside a browser on the other monitor. ### 45. noobie coding **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlos R. | freelance, Graphic Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 28, 2016 **What do you like best about Brackets?** As a beginner in the code world i just love the autocomplete features, it makes your job faster and you'll be sure that you wont misswrite the attribute or stuff like that, also you have your librarie on your left side of the UI so you can swicht easily between your CSS, JS or HTML code or even just click on one ID in your html code and see the CSS code for that ID just awesome. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Even if its cool it might have some way to make it better, like it miss something. Its made for WEB development. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** As i say im a beginner on this code world, but i strongly recommend it mostly for this new features that i've never seen on other text editors, even if at the beggining you'll feel weird and wanting to go back, the new features will bring you back, so give it a chance. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Im a Designer freelancer starting on the web development, and have made some "homework" and "experiments" to studie and keep learning. ### 46. Not that lightweight yet powerful. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jose H. | Co Host / Graphic Designer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 27, 2016 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets feels like an extension of Chrome’s Developer tools. The Live Preview feature is incredibly useful, combining the advantages of coding in the browser with those of a dedicated editor. Its other killer feature for me is Quick Edit, although it feels like that’s some way off from its full potential. However, by tapping into users’ knowledge of web technologies, it seems likely that any gaps will quickly be filled by contributions. it is much less memory hungry than WebStorm or Eclipse, it is flexible and easy to use. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** It's too specific. It's good for front end web development, but nothing else. It is heavy, slow and bloated. Contrary to their propaganda. 150 MB isn’t what I would call lightweight… It’s worth pointing out that Brackets is primarily aimed at front end developers and web designers. Although it’s essentially a text editor and therefore suitable for coding pretty much anything, it’s optimized for HTML, CSS, and JS (as well as derivatives such as SASS, Less, CoffeeScript, and so on). Ruby, Python, PHP developers, and the like might be better served looking elsewhere, whether that be for a fully-fledged IDE or something more lightweight such as Sublime or, indeed, Atom. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Just try it, and judge by yourself. It doesn’t take so much time… it you want something faster, try Sublime. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick code editing on the go. It's powerful, modern text editor. ### 47. A mountain of features comes at the cost of speed. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Glen M. | Executive Creative Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 23, 2016 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Brackets is one of the best free code editors on the market, only recently surpassed by Atom. It has a host of features, and a dedicated community of developers who have built a tonne of plugins. Up until recently it was my editor of choice as it was free, open-source, pretty to look at, easy to use, and had a stack of custom features to make coding simple and streamlined. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Unfortunately like so many Adobe products, the wide variety of features often comes at the expense of performance. It's a little slow to open, and extra slow when searching for and installing extension plugins. Once it's open, you'll be fine... but the startup and process hangs are very annoying. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Definitely check out Atom as well. It's a newer code editor that's quite similar. The workflow is a little different, but on the whole they are quite comparable. I found the speed a little faster with Atom too. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I started with brackets because it had some great features you couldn't find elsewhere - like the integration with Adobe Photoshop. This helped speed up the design to development process. Like most modern day editors, the open-source aspect was also desirable - having moved away from proprietary software like Panic's Coda and MacRabbit's Espresso. ### 48. Awesome functions, but made with slow framework **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andrew S. | UI Designer, Graphic Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** Cross platform software, that offers same similar look and feel across all major platforms, I work: Linux, MacOS and Windows. Very fast development and update cycle that provides support for latest web development technologies. Big community of developers, commiting broad range of plug-ins, available to extend Brackets. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** Brackets is written in Javascript and it consumes much resources to run. I'd like to use it on my low-end laptop, released in 2009, but it lags! Some plug-ins are very unstable. For example, Git add-on freezes on large repositories, etc. Not all Linux repositories are compatible with Brackets. The problem occurs in stable branches of REHL, Debian & SuSe, because of old glibc. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** Do not overload Brackets with extensions. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a free-lance web developer, who used to work on several workspaces: at home & in office. ### 49. Beautiful UI and fun to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 07, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I really liked how beautiful the UI was. It was pretty seamless and easy to use - a lot of the features (like side-by-side windows) were much easier to discover (without previous exposure). It is very lightweight and intuitive to use. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I had issues with flashing/some UI instability. That's the main reason I stopped using it. **Recommendations to others considering Brackets:** It was easy to use, but there were some instability issues. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was using it as a text editor, for going through code and general line comparison (side-by-side windows). ### 50. Easy to read **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Media Production | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 07, 2017 **What do you like best about Brackets?** I like the look of Brackets better than other code/text editors, and I love how fast it is. **What do you dislike about Brackets?** I wish I could open files in tabs to compare side by side. I use adobe creative cloud as well, and I wish brackets and adobe edge code were the same application rather than being two separate applications on my machine. I'm still confused by this. **What problems is Brackets solving and how is that benefiting you?** Editing code - this is a good visual solution that is fast and easy to use. ## Brackets Discussions - [Hoe to change the dark theme background](https://www.g2.com/discussions/12642-hoe-to-change-the-dark-theme-background) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Is there a shortcut or simple way to auto format code within Brackets?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/29397-is-there-a-shortcut-or-simple-way-to-auto-format-code-within-brackets) - 1 comment - [View Brackets pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/brackets/reviews?page=5§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-13+07%3A20%3A27+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=b3e34fb6-4984-4a58-983d-5112de420051&secure%5Btoken%5D=c468149408be0a6b5ef94ae5431b5d66628d627d4b6ef2fde5d8330045f603f6&format=llm_user) ## Brackets Integrations - [Apple Safari](https://www.g2.com/products/apple-safari/reviews) - [Chrome OS](https://www.g2.com/products/chrome-os/reviews) - [Mozilla Firefox](https://www.g2.com/products/mozilla-firefox/reviews) ## Brackets Features **Coding** - Syntax highlighting - Autocompletion - Find and replace - Code folding **Editing** - Collaborative editing - Language Support - Selection Methods **Functionality** - Extensibility - Cross-platform support - Plugins and integrations - Security **Agentic AI - Landing Page Builders** - Cross-system Integration ## Top Brackets Alternatives - [Visual Studio Code](https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio-code/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (2,643 reviews) - [Notepad++](https://www.g2.com/products/notepad/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (2,411 reviews) - [Sublime Text](https://www.g2.com/products/sublime-text/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,748 reviews)