You've spent years configuring Atom. Hundreds of lines in config.cson, dozens of plugins, custom key bindings. The editor became an extension of your hands. And then GitHub announced: as of December 15, 2022, Atom is officially closed, repositories archived, development stopped.

The solution turned out to be both simple and complex. Simple, because the successor is obvious: Visual Studio Code, Microsoft's free open-source editor, has already become an industry standard. Complex, because migration means rebuilding your familiar work environment from scratch. But every feature you loved in Atom is either already built into VS Code or installs with one click.

In this material, a direct transfer of three specific scenarios from Atom to VS Code: code formatting, quick project search, and working with a remote server via FTP. With specific extension names, keyboard shortcuts, and configs.

💡 Quick overview:

• Install VS Code, add Prettier (formatting) and SFTP (synchronization with server) extensions
• Memorize three shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+F for file search, Ctrl+P for quick navigation, Ctrl+Shift+P for command palette
• Configure sftp.json once, enable uploadOnSave, and the editor will automatically handle synchronization on every save
• Master Ctrl+P @ for symbol navigation and Ctrl+P : for line jumping, two features without Atom equivalents

Code formatting, auto-prettification without plugins

In Atom, the atom-beautify package handled HTML, CSS, and JS formatting. You'd open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), type "Install packages," find atom-beautify, and hit "Install." Then you'd get used to the Ctrl+Alt+B shortcut to run formatting.

VS Code goes further. Basic formatting is built right into the core: Shift+Alt+F on Windows or Shift+Option+F on Mac. No plugins, no configuration. But for serious work, the community has long settled on one tool, Prettier. It's an opinionated formatter: it decides line width, places semicolons, wraps long attributes. No style debates in the team, Prettier just does it all.

Installation takes a minute. Open Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X), type Prettier - Code formatter (author, esbenp.prettier-vscode), click Install. To make Prettier trigger on every save, go to settings (Ctrl+,), check "Format on Save" or add to settings.json:

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{
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  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
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  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
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}

From this point on, any save (Ctrl+S) formats the file automatically. The same feel as atom-beautify, only faster and without an extra package manager.

Quick search and project navigation

In Atom you used Ctrl+Shift+F to search files in the project folder. The mechanics were simple: open a project as a directory, press the shortcut, enter a string, and see matches across all files at once.

VS Code implements search exactly the same way, Ctrl+Shift+F. A Search sidebar opens with an input field. Type a substring, and the editor shows all occurrences grouped by files. You can click any match and jump straight to that line. Everything like Atom, only search works an order of magnitude faster, the ripgrep engine written in Rust scans the file tree instantly even in large monorepos.

But the main advantage of VS Code is Ctrl+P (Quick Open). It's not just quick file switching: type part of a filename without the exact path, and the editor finds it instantly. Typed ftpconf, and sftp.json is already on the first line. Added @ after the name, a list of symbols (functions, classes, variables) inside the file drops down. Added :, jump to line number. Three keystrokes without Slow Keys delays: Ctrl+P, a couple letters, Enter.

And one more thing: Ctrl+Shift+P, Command Palette. Same as in Atom, but with smarter fuzzy command search. Typed fmt, you see both Format Document and all related actions. Plugins are picked up automatically.

Working with remote server: SFTP instead of Remote-FTP

In Atom, the Remote-FTP package was used for FTP connections. The config lived in .ftpconfig and required manual management of the keepalive parameter: some plugin versions interpreted 0 as disabling keepalive, others as a 10000 ms interval. ECONNRESET confusion was standard, especially after updates.

In VS Code, SFTP by Natizyskunk handles FTP/SFTP, an actively maintained fork of the original liximobo/vscode-sftp. The workflow is the same, but without legacy keepalive bugs. The config goes in .vscode/sftp.json inside the project folder. Basic template:

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{
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  "name": "My Server",
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  "host": "ftp.example.com",
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  "protocol": "ftp",
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  "port": 21,
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  "username": "user",
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  "password": "password",
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  "remotePath": "/public_html/project",
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  "uploadOnSave": true
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}

The uploadOnSave: true field is the magic: every Ctrl+S simultaneously saves the file locally and uploads it to the server. No manual synchronization.

Installation is standard: Ctrl+Shift+X → search SFTP (author Natizyskunk) → Install. Then Ctrl+Shift+P → SFTP: Config, and the editor will create an sftp.json template in the .vscode folder. Fill in host, login, and password fields, save, and you're ready to work. The SFTP: Download Project command will pull an existing project from the server in one go.

If your Atom .ftpconfig is sitting somewhere in backups, field transfer takes a minute: host and port stay as is, user becomes username, remote becomes remotePath. Password in sftp.json is optional: don't specify it, the editor will ask on first connection (actually safer that way).

A direct analog for those who prefer SSH over FTP is the Remote, SSH extension by Microsoft. It doesn't just synchronize files, it opens an entire remote machine as a local folder. Terminal, debugging, search, everything works on the server transparently.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Is it mandatory to switch from Atom specifically to VS Code?

No, editor choice is a personal matter. Besides VS Code there's Zed (fast, Rust-based, focused on AI assistants), Sublime Text 4 (minimalist, paid), and Pulsar, a community fork of Atom trying to continue its development. But in terms of "community size + number of extensions + update frequency," VS Code in 2026 is unrivaled. Pulsar did gather part of the Atom community and supports the old package format, including atom-beautify, but the development pace is much slower, the extension catalog is limited, and corporate teams aren't switching to it. If you're a solo developer and categorically don't want to change habits, give it a try. For everything else, there's VS Code.

How do I migrate snippets from Atom to VS Code?

Atom stored user snippets in ~/.atom/snippets.cson (CSON format, similar to CoffeeScript-style JSON). VS Code uses plain JSON in snippets.code-snippets file inside the project's .vscode folder or globally through File > Preferences > User Snippets. The format differs: prefix field instead of prefix in CSON, body with an array of strings instead of multiline. Migrating one entry takes 30 seconds of copy-paste. For bulk migration there are converters, search for atom-to-vscode-snippets on GitHub.

What about color themes?

All popular Atom themes have long been ported to VS Code. One Dark, Monokai, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, type the theme name in Extensions search (Ctrl+Shift+X), and it'll come up on the first try. Syntax highlighting in VS Code works through TextMate grammars, the same ones Atom used, so colors and tokens match almost pixel-perfect.

Does multi-cursor work like in Atom?

Yes, and with exactly the same keys: Ctrl+D selects the next occurrence of the word under cursor, Alt+Click places an arbitrary editing point, Ctrl+Shift+L selects all occurrences at once. Atom invented multi-cursor editing, VS Code implemented it identically.

Can VS Code open very large files (logs, dumps)?

Atom started noticeably slowing down on files larger than 2 MB, and the 10 MB threshold was practically insurmountable. VS Code handles it significantly better: files up to 50-100 MB open normally (syntax highlighting may disable automatically to save memory). For extra-large logs (gigabytes), use the Large File Support extension or external tools like less/grep in the terminal.

What to install in 2026: a specific stack instead of Atom

If you're still on Atom, the last day for migration was yesterday. The editor no longer receives security updates, the apm package manager is disabled, and some packages are already incompatible with the latest version (1.63.2 from November 2022). Staying on a dead editor means working with an open door.

Specific replacement stack:

• VS Code as the main editor, free, monthly updates, 50,000+ extensions in the Marketplace.
• Prettier for formatting everything: HTML, CSS, JS, Markdown, JSON. One keystroke on save.
• SFTP by Natizyskunk for uploading files to hosting via FTP/SFTP. Same .ftpconfig pattern as Remote-FTP, only without keepalive bugs.
• Remote, SSH if hosting supports SSH access: full-fledged work with server files without manual synchronization.

Three steps to start right now: download VS Code from the official site, install Prettier and SFTP extensions, transfer data from .ftpconfig to sftp.json. This will take an hour and close the editor question for years to come. Give it a try, since everything listed is free.