Pulsar vs VSCodium

Pulsar is a free, open-source desktop text editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is a community-led fork of the discontinued Atom editor, with a stated aim of continuing and improving an open, hackable editor. Its package manager supports finding and installing packages or creating them. Language server integration provides autocompletion, smart navigation, and other IDE features. A filesystem browser can open an individual file, one project, or multiple projects in the same window. Editing features include multiple cursors, snippets, semantic selections, code folding, and syntax highlighting. Configuration files let users adjust keybindings, language-specific settings, styles, and other aspects of appearance or behavior. Git tools can switch branches, stage code, resolve merge conflicts, and show open GitHub pull requests. A bundled updater detects when a newer version is available. The current release page lists Windows 10 or later, macOS 10.15 or later, and Linux with glibc 2.31 or later. Pulsar says its editor collects no user information and sends nothing to remote servers; backend troubleshooting logs include IP and user-agent details and are deleted after 30 days.

VSCodium is a community-built distribution of Microsoft's VS Code editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop computers. Its binaries are licensed under MIT, and telemetry is disabled. The project aims to make the latest MIT-licensed VS Code version easier to obtain; users can also build from Microsoft's vscode repository. Project scripts clone the repository, create binaries, and upload them to GitHub releases. The editor supports extensions, a built-in debugger, remote development, and language servers. Installation routes vary by system: macOS has a Homebrew cask, while Windows supports Windows Package Manager, Chocolatey, and Scoop. Documented Linux packages or repositories cover Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Arch, Gentoo, and others. VSCodium is also available through Snap as Codium, Flathub as a Flatpak, and Nixpkgs, and it is pre-installed in Parrot OS. Windows code signing is provided free by SignPath.io with a SignPath Foundation certificate; a macOS certificate was provided by @daiyam. The project directs package-manager issues to the related repository.