Popular Python IDE and Code Editors in 2020 for Beginner and Professional

Pardeep Batra
3 min readSep 29, 2020
image-source[GeeksforGeeks]

Python… the foremost popular and favorite programing language within the world for programmers of all age groups.

If you are a beginner this language is strongly recommended to learn first. Well, In programming, we all know the importance of code editor and IDEs to write our program and to execute it but choosing the best code editor or IDE is always a confusing question. Understand that the best code editor or IDE depends on so many things such as programming language, project type, project size, OS support and considering a lot of other features. If we talk about Python so this language is also not an exception.

Firstly understand that IDE and code editor both are various things.

Text/Code Editor: Code editors are the lightweight tool that allows you to write and edit the code with some features such as syntax highlighting and code formatting. It provided fewer features than IDE.

Integrated Development Environment (IDE): IDEs are a full-fledged environment that provides all the essential tools needed for software development. It just doesn’t handle the code (for example, write, edit, syntax highlighting and auto-completion) but also provides other features such as debugging, execution, testing, and code formatting that helps programmers.

Let’s start with some overview of the simplest code editor supported certain terms…

What is Your Level?

Beginner — IDLE (or Online Python Editors) is ideal choice for the primary steps in python language. PyCharm is also good but takes the help of some experienced person while using this.
Intermediate — PyCharm, Sublime, Atom, Vs Code.
Advanced — PyCharm, Vim, Emacs, Sublime, Atom, Vs Code.

What’s Your End Goal?

Web development — PyCharm Professional, VS Code
Data Science — Spyder, Jupyter Notebook, PyCharm Professional
Scripting — Sublime, Atom, PyCharm Community, Eclipse + PyDev
QA — Sublime, Atom, PyCharm Community, Jupyter Notebook

What is Your Environment/OS?

Linux, macOS — PyCharm, Sublime, Atom, Vim, Jupyter
Windows — Sublime, VS Code, Eclipse + PyDev, PyCharm
Multiple/mixed OS — PyCharm, Sublime, Atom

Which Hardware Do You Have?

Bad — IDLE, Atom, Sublime, Online Editor
Good — PyCharm, VS Code, Eclipse + PyDev

Comparison Table

image-source[softwaretestinghelp]

List of Best Python IDE

1.PyCharm

In industries most of the professional developers use PyCharm and it’s been considered the simplest IDE for python developers. It was developed by the Czech company JetBrains and it’s a cross-platform IDE.

2. Spyder
Spyder is a good open-source and cross-platform IDE written in Python. It is also called Scientific Python Development IDE and it’s the foremost lightweight IDE for Python.

3. Eclipse PyDev
Eclipse is one of the most popular IDE among developers which is written in Java but you can install Pydev plugin in eclipse and use it for Python as well.

4. IDLE
IDLE may be a cross-platform open-source IDE that comes by default with Python so you don’t got to worry about the installation or setup

5. Wing

Wing IDE is made by Wingware and it’s faster, stable and very lightweight cross-platform Python IDE. It comes in three editions:

Wing Pro (Free Trial): A full-featured commercial version, for professional programmers.
Wing Personal (Paid): Free version that omits some features, for students and hobbyists.
Wing 101 (Paid): A very simplified free version, for beginners in programming.

List of Best Python Code Editor

Code editors are basically the text editors which are wont to edit the ASCII text file as per the wants.

1) Sublime Text
2) Atom
3) Vim
4) Visual Studio Code

Summary

What is the main difference between both of them and why Python developers use Python IDE for the development of web or cloud applications?

All the tools are best according to their environment for Python application development. You can choose according to your own software requirement.

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Pardeep Batra

Pardeep is a mobile app development aficionado with expertise in strategic planning, product innovation, and mobile applications.